SOCIALIST TRAIN WRECKERS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 58, 30 August 1911, Page 3

SOCIALIST TRAIN WRECKERS

NARROW' ESCAPE OF FRENCH 'EXPRESS. Paris, July 10. This has been a dav of railway accidents. An attempt was made this afternoonto wreck shc express from Paris to Oaen, which passes Lisieux at 1.30 a.m. Ureat stones had been placed upon the line, but fortunately the engine-driver of the express saw them in time, and put on the brakes. While the engine-driver-and the passengers were working to remove the stones from the line, the guard ran backto tlic signal-box, which Was not,very far away, and telephoned both to Cae'n and to Lisieux. _ Three detectives who had been watching the line at night were in Lisieux railway station when the message came, and they succeeded in arresting the two culprits—lads of twenty-one and eighteen—whose minds have been perverted by Socialistic doctrines. They confessed that they had attempted to wreck the train "to save society from the rule of the rich." One of them confessed, too. that he ha* hoped to make a haul from the pockets of the rich passengers who would be hurt in the accident.

The south express from Madrid, which had crashed into an engine while going at a speed of more than sixtv miles an hour, arrived in Paris six hours late this afternoon. The accident occurred soon after 4 o'clock this morning, just beyond Rtiffet, when the train was trying to pick up sonic lost minutes. A locomotive was being shunted and the south express dashed into it, overturning it and killiiif the engine-driver. ° Several passengers of the south vx-prc.-s were badly bruised, and the stoker was terribly burned. An engine and three first-class carnag.s of a slow train were derailed at Cherbourg on a new piece of line. There won- 200 people in the train, but none of them was hurt. A goods train was derailed at Chaville and the line was blocked for three hours.