FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENTS IN VICTORIA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1162, 8 April 1884, Page 1

FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENTS IN VICTORIA.

Melbourne, April 4. The inquiry into the Little River railway collision commences on Saturday. Mr Hickman Molesworth (County Court Judge) will act as President of the Court of Inquiry. Craik, the driver of the passenger train, died of injuries received through the recent collision. A list giving the names of twenty-three persons seriously injured has been published. Many others were slightly injured. Everything tends to confirm the frightful nature of the shock. The trucks were heaped upon one another for a distance of twenty feet, and the tender on the top of the engine. The scene was one of desolation, and the state of the injured was most pitiful when assistance arrived, which was not till four hours had elapsed. Biddle, the Weribee Stationmaster, confessed his responsibility for the catastrophe. The staff system is, it appears, partially in abeyance on the Victorian lines. Accounts of the Suobury disaster state that the explosion was terrific. Several trucks were smashed, and the fire box, weighing half a ton, was blown a distance of 300 yards. April 4. The second-class passenger who was killed by tbo Little River railway accident, has been identified as Mrs Johnstone, of South Melbourne. The inquests were held to-day on the bodies of the victims of the Little River railway accident, but, in view of the strict investigations into the disaster which are about to be held here, the verdicts returned were merely of a formal nature.