EXTRAORDINARY RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Waikato Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1234, 27 May 1880, Page 3

EXTRA OR DIN A RY RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

A railway accident, unattended by loss of life, but presenting a spectacle at once terrible and picturesque took place on the 131/hult., on the New York, Lake Erie, and Western Railroad, in the woods near Southfields, New Jersey, a small station about 40 miles distant from New York. An oil ti'.iin containing 20 tank-cars was run into by a freight train, whose driver, owing to a h'-avy snowstorm, was unable to see tlio signals against him. The engineer and driver of the oil train maiviged to have tlieir lives by jumping into a snowbank jusfc befoio the collision ; but the engine of the freight tram crash; d into the oil-Ccirs and lay huddled up with them on the tracks. The fire of the engine sjou .spread to one of the oil-tank^, and in a few minutes the whole mass was wrapped in ilamos. Nine tanks containing 180,000 gallons of crude petrolotm were at once in a blaze. The oil ran into the woods, and ' ' giant tongues of flame shot heavenward." Occasionally an old tank would become overheated, the gas would generate too fast and an explosion, from the effects of which the ground trembled as from an earthquake, would ensue. " A scene of wilder grandeur "it is stated "could not well be imagined." The scene must, indeed, have been almost inconveniently grand, for not only were the trees in the neighborhood reduced to ashes, but " one by one the telegraph wires were seperated, and their ends fell to the ground. " The heat was so intense that the railway officials and a few hundred spectators from the adjacant villages were obkged to remain at a distance until the fire had expended its force and things assumed a less sublime but more comfortable aspect.