SERIOUS ACCIDENT TO THE NIGHT DOWN-TRAIN.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1113, 12 August 1879, Page 3

SERIOUS ACCIDENT TO THE NIGHT DOWN-TRAIN.

NARROW ESCAPE FROM MUTILATION AND DEATH. Some frightful catastrophe wlil yet happen before the Legislature is awakened to the necessity of fencing the railway lines. Last night the down-train when passing through a swamp ten miles this side of Mercer ran into a beast, and the consequence was the check given to the train caused a dozen empty trucks next to the engine to be thrown up on a pile partly on and partly off the line. The passenger carriages were fortunately in rear of these trucks which broke the force of the concussion. It was impossible to get the tracks away so as to hitch on the passenger carriages to tho engine, and the passengers had to crawl, some of them over and some under the heap of piled up trucks. Two ladies, ■who dared not venture on this feat, were left behind in the passenger carriages. The rest of the passengers, among them a lady and some children, were brought on by the engine in one of the trucks, But for the fact that there were a number of trucks between the engine and the passenger carnages, we should have had to chronicle a very serious accident.