COLLISION OF THREE TRAINS IN A TUNNEL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 927, 14 March 1882, Page 3

COLLISION OF THREE TRAINS IN A TUNNEL.

On the 10th December an extraordinary railway accident, in some respects unparalelled, took place on the North London Railway within the tunnel which runs under the rising ground of Highbury) resulting in the death of five people, and severe injuries to twenty-five others. The fact of three trains, all running in the same direction, colliding on a line worked on the block system makes this sad catastrophe all the more exceptional in the history of railway disasters. At 53 minutes past 8 o’clock a city train left Finsbury Park, packed, as is usually the case, with business men and others whose profession calls them to town at an early hour. At Canonbury Junction, or more strictly speaking, while about <0 emerge from the tunnel, the train was stopped by the hand signal, there being an engine on the section ahead, blocking the way. While the train was so standing —within view of the signal-box —there came an ominous thundering noise from the far end of the tunnel, as if presaging the approach of another train, which proved to be the 8.43 from Enfield, on the same line of metals. Great alarm was naturally felt by many in the train, which was presently justified by a crash. The shock, however, was not great, as at the exit of the tunnel trains are expected to slacken speed to six miles an hour or therebouts. The wildest excitement prevailed nevertheless, and many people even in the thick darkness attempted to leave the carriages, regardless of the danger to be apprehended from traffic on the down line, it is supposed that up to this time no one was actually injured. But in a minute or two more another terrible crash came from a third train—that leaving Finsbury Park at 9 minutes past 9—and all this, too, in face of the fact that (he signal at the Canonbury end of the tunnel was set against traffic on the up line. The force of the collision smashed the guard’s van of the middle train into a thousand fragments, and killed the guard himself, while the third-class smoking compartment immediatly in front of the van was “ telescoped,” and several of its occupants killed on the spot. The driver had strained every nerve to stop his train on seeing the danger ahead, but owing to the bend in the tunnel he was unable to observe it in time to avoid the dreadful chock. In his desperate efforts to apply the break he j sprained his wrist severely, and almost [ simultaneously with the concussion the { scotched, and man led body of the guard

in the preceding train was hurled upon the engine, which leapt at the same moment upon the the third-class carriage. The scene in the tunnel was indescribable. It was quite dark. No one there could see the xxorrors round and about him. It is known, however, from those who had the ill-fate to be present, that the experience was agonising to an extent beyond precedent even in railway disasters. Not only were the wounded groaning and shrieking from beneath the wreck of the carriages, but in every direction the uninjured and frightened passengers were madly groping for light and a'.r in the midst of darkness and in an atmosphere ciiarged with scalding steam. Some, in their blind leaps from the carriages, were pitched headlong on the line; others, before attempting to escape from the wreck, had first to disentangle themselves from the dead and the dying.