RAILWAY DISASTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1919, Page 6

RAILWAY DISASTER.

WRECKED m TUNNEL. THE NEW YORK TRAGEDY TERRIBLE DEATH ROLL. More than 100 persons were killed outright, 50 others suffered mortal injury, and at least 300 persons were taken to hospitals last night when a Brighton Beach train of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company was driven beyond signals and crashed to fragments in the new tunnel west of tho Prospect Park station, says a New York paper of November Z, in describing the railway tragedy which was briefly reported by cajblegram.

This record catastrophe in the . history of New York traction accidents occurred, according to city officials, as a result of the inexperience of the motorman in charge, who was running the train for the first time because of the shortage of men, resulting from the strike upon the lines of tiie company. The strike, which began yesterday morning, was called when the company refused to accept the decision of the War Labor Boards supporting the union motormen in a demand that men discharged for mere union membership be reinstated.

Men, women and children were crushed and mangled in the frightful disaster, which came after 25 minutes of wild riding. Persons in the front car of the train had called repeatedly to the motorman to slow down, according to witnesses, and when a few stations before the accident he went completely off his route and was compelled to back up to resume the trip to Brighton Belie", about jjQO persons hurried from the train.

SIGNALS AGAINST TKAIN. The train which was crushed in the tunnel left Park Row a few minutes foefore 7 o'clock. It consisted of five cars, and was thronged to the platforms, inasmuch as the strike had slowed up the schedule of trains. It proceeded fitfully, making short stops at the stations and starting suddenly until it reached the incline which runs down by the Consumers' Park Station in Brooklyn- The signals at the Consumers' Park Station were set against the train, witnesses said, but the motorman suddenly threw on all power and went into the areshaped tunnel at a speed which threw the passengers from, their feet and caused screams of alarm throughout the heavilv-loaded cars.

As it swept into the wide curve of the tunnel the first trucks of the first car left the rails anu dug deep into the 2ft wide cement wall which borders the rails. i'lie force of the cars behind turned the first car almost into its course after this halt, and with tho first trucks completely ripped off the power car, it was forced before the others. Its platform again caught in the cenMT, and the other cars were thrown oIT the rails and crashed against the east wall of tlie wide curve. The second and fourth cars were smashed from their trucks, and cleared of their roofs, and the third car was smashed to kindling wood. The fifth car, in which were the fewest passengers, was not injured, although derailed.

SCENE OP HORROR IN TUNNEL. It would be hard to conceive a mora distressing location for such an accident than the spot deep within the black, darn tunnel where lay the masses of debris containing the dead and injured. The roar of the splintering wood and steel and the sparks and screams, followed by the great crash, seemed to paralyse the few passengers who were uninjured and free of the wreckage, and it was said that more than 10 trains had been stalled outside the tunnel before it waa inown that a frightful accident had occurred within.

Two men finally got to the Consumers' Park Station and' told of the tragedy a qflifrter of a mile down the tracks. Withm half an hour every ambulance in Brooklyn was in the streets above the cut west of the station or at the entrance of the Prospect Park Station at the opposite end of the tunnel Six companies of fire apparatus were called at once, and the police finally took to commandeering every lhotor vehicle which approached, as it was realised that scores had been killed and .hundreds injured ja the tunnel below

jjARGE crowds assemble. Vast throngs gathered at either end of the tunnel, and despite the efforts of the police, there >vas great disorder as frantic relativs.4 sought trace of persons who might be expected 011 that train. The firemen adjusted ladders in the 50ft opening on the west end of t'llo tunnel, and for two hours the injured were lifted by ropea and flings up u> the ambulances. At .the Prospect Park Station, which is on the surfam, there was early a row of move than f>o dead, men, women, and chi'tfren. Scores of passengers seeking to gat over the lead or to pass before the injured as they were taken out from that side of the tunnel, became hysterical ana had to be restrained. As the bodies w?re taken in their turn from the llalbone Street or west dof the tunnel, the police were forced to drive the great throngs back more than a block 'because of the frantic of men, women, and children to seek their own.

' "A WILD UIDE." Joliif'J. McCarthy, a ileteclivs from the tSnvder Avenue Station, who wrs at Consumers' Park Stavon v.i'en clie aceidejii was reported, and was the first of the emergency rescuers to enter the tminef, said that upon die arrival of the firs and police forces lie had talked with a Brooklyn Rapid Transit guard, who gave the name of Turner, and who had been slightly cut about the head. Tanitr tuhl the detective that "lie had never had As wild a ride in his life a:- that which terminated in the accident, and that when the train swept into the curve of the tunnel it was threshing about, so that i two women had fainted on the platform ! beside the guard,, and he was helpln<r to them when the crash and the spinster of steel and ivoor! cams with the lurching of the tiai.u to its destruction.

The detective^'i*- others fir?'; on the scene, built one sflwai : .entires which lit •.;]) Ihe ti7»ljnol iiiic; sxrcatly aided the work of rescue to the arrival of the fire apparatus Hmelights and otrosr eqo'pmeat. -v.