TRAVELLING AT HIGH SPEED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 December 1938, Page 5

TRAVELLING AT HIGH SPEED.

DIFFICULTY IN IDENTIFYING DEAD. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. SALT LAKE CITY, December 2. Physicians declared that many of those injured in the accident in which a high school bus was struck by a fast goods train during a snowstorm would be maimed for life. Others are expected to die. It is impossible to identify the broken bodies of many of the dead. Officials are checking homes in the area to determine the exact casualty list. The dead include the driver of the bus. Railway officials said that the train was an hour late because of the weather and travelling fast, probably in excess of 60 miles an hour. It appears that the engineer was on the right side of the driver’s cab of the locomotive and that the bus camk from the left. The fireman screamed to him to stop. An entire floor of the hospital was filled with victims of the crash and there was a special room for parents who fainted. Chance circumstances saved a number of children from being on the bus. One youngster stayed at home because of toothache. His brother was killed. A girl, whose home is opposite the side of the railway track, was waiting for the bus and saw it hit by the train. When the news of the tragedy reached the high school, many children had to be forced into buses to make the trip home and several drivers at first refused to leave.