ATTEMPT TO WRECK A TRAIN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2587, 9 February 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

ATTEMPT TO WRECK A TRAIN.

It has been discovered that on Tuesday night, December 4'h, the mail train from Vienna to Brimn and Prague barely csc iped a terrible disaster. Near the Giu-s----haiOi station, ninety-three kilometres north of Vienna, just an hour before the triin was timed to pass, it was discovered thai seferal of the rails had been maliciously loosened. The details to hand render it certain that, but for the presence of mind and high senso of duty of Sergfc. Joseph Stieha, a non-commissioned officer of gendarmes, t.ho diabolical plot would have succeeded, and a fearful catastrophe have keen inevitable. Fortunately Sticha happened to hear a «uspiciou< noise near the rails, some distance from Grussbaoh. On approaching the snot ho saw four men take to flight, leaving behind them the tools with which they were working. lie discovered that the miscreants had already wrenched out two of the rails. The fir.it impulse of the gendarme was to follow the criminals ; but remembering that the express train would soon bo parsing, he ran to the station at Grussbach, a distance of three English miles, and, on reaching the signal, threw hU red handkerchief over it as a rough warning of danger. He just reached the station in time to stop the train, which consisted of fifteen carriages, all well filled—carrying, in fact, about two hundred and fifty people, fe.v of whom could have escaped a terrible death but for the gendarme's presence of inind. The spot at which the rails had been pulled up was situated a few yards before reaching a bridge crossing, some eighteen feet high, over a brook. The locality, as well as the hour, was evidently designedly ehoscn. The criminals arc unfortunately still at largo,