Railway Accident Print E-mail

FEARFUL ACCIDENT ON THE NORTH-EASTERN
                              RAILWAY

                                                        SHIELDS, Friday

A collision on the North-Eastern Railway, whch occurred yesterday, and which
is mentioned in a local paper this morning, was of a much more fearful
description than there described, and probably the escape of the passengers
with so few injuries, and without loss of life, is amongst the most
remarkable in the history of railway travelling.

The engine of the eleven o'clock train from Newcastle to Shields and
Sunderland, after leaving the Felling Station, broke down in a deep cutting
approaching a long tunnel which runs underneath the village of Heworth.  At
the moment that the engine broke down, the driver and guard knew that a
heavy goods train, drawn by two large engines, was following them, and that
the fast train from York and Manchester and London was due, and might pass
any moment along the opposite pair of rails.  The passengers if they had to
avoid been smashed by a collision with the goods train, would have to escape
across those up-rails on to the opposite embankment.

The engine driver, thinking this the least of the two dangers, called on the
passengers to jump and clamber up the opposite wall for their lives.  All
who heard got out of the carriages, and the ladies had to be pulled up a
six-foot wall;  all, however, were not able to get up in time.  The guard
was sent back to warn the goods train;  but though its drivers saw him and
took off the steam, they were not able to pull up in time, and they ran into
the passenger train, sending a first-class carriage off the ways, and half
across the up pair of rails.

In a moment after this occurrence, the fast train was discovered emerging
from the tunnel, and it was seen that it had all its steam on.  The ladies
who had not escaped on to the embankment, were held close to the wall, and
the train dashed against the first-class carriage that lay in her way,
smashing its end to pieces, and tearing two or three other carriages of the
standing train off the rails.

On it dashed, however, and, having ascertained at the Felling Station that
no one was killed, the engineman ran on the Newcastle Station, carrying a
portion of the smashed carriage on the end of the engine.  The only accident
that occurred to the fast train was that the engine broke one of its buffer
ends, and smashed the glass in the plate protecting the engineman from the
weather.

A shipwright, who was deaf and did not escape with the other passengers from
the Shields train, had one or two of his ribs fractured by the goods train
running into it, and another man was cut about the head.  These were the
only injuries done to the passengers.
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