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    1. [ENG-WESTMORLAND] PENRITH HERALD Saturday January 17, 1874 / RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.
    2. Barb Baker
    3. RAILWAY ACCIDENTS. COLLISION AT LEEDS. As a train for Leeds was leaving the Exchange Station, it came into collision with a goods engine employed in shunting. The steps and footboards of several carriages were torn away, and some carriage doors broke. A second accident occurred at the same place shortly afterwards, a train being run into a siding with so much force as to cause the buffers to give way. Many passengers were severely shaken. COLLISION BETWEEN A PASSENGER AND GOOD TRAIN. On Wednesday night a passenger train from Glasgow for Edinburgh, came into collision with a goods train, near Falkirk. The result was that about half-a-dozen passengers were injured so seriously as to require medical assistance. They were attended at once by DR. ARTHUR MITCHELL, Edinburgh. MR. ROBERTSON, saddler, Polmont, was the passenger who was most seriously injured. JAMES URIE, the guard of the passenger train, sustained a scalp wound. The engine-driver and stoker escaped with slight injuries. The train from Glasgow at nine o'clock brought the passengers to Edinburgh by Greenhill and Larbert. FALL OF A TUNNEL. The tunnel between Merthyr and Abernant Stations on the Vale of Neath section of the Great Western Railway, fell in as a goods trains was passing through, almost burying the engine. The driver and stoker, by jumping off, fortunately avoided injury. On examination, the roof was found to be in a very unsafe condition for a considerable distance, and it will be some days at least before traffic can be resumed. The road itself has caved in, consequent on the coal being worked out from under it. For some years past it has been known that coal-workings were approaching very near the tunnel, and fears have frequently been expressed of a catastrophe. The colliers working in their stalls could hear all the trains passing over their heads, and the men in the tunnel could hear the colliers picking at the coal-headings underneath their feet. FATAL COLLISION OF THE GREAT NORTHERN. The Great Northern Scotch express, leaving Edinburgh at 10.45 a.m., is due at Grantham at 6.56 p.m. On Saturday it was a few minutes late in leaving York. On reaching Selby, a dense fog prevailed, rendering it impossible to see many yards ahead, but the train was under the charge of COBB, one of the steadiest drivers on the line, and all having been reported clear at Retford and Newark, at both of which places the express stops, COBB drove on at the usual speed of twenty-five or thirty miles an hour past Claypole and Houghham Stations, and the signals at Barkstone junction standing at all clear, he had arrived within a few hundred yards of the points before he observed a Boston train coming out on the main line immediately in front of the express. There was no time for more than a sharp whistle, indicating danger, when the engine of the Scotch express struck into the local train, crushing the back carriage immediately in front of the break van, and making sad havoc amongst the leading carriages. The engine and tender of the Boston train by some means - probably owing to the driver observing his danger, and putting on a sudden extra pressure of steam - broke away from the carriages, and the driver and stoker escaped uninjured. COBB, the driver of the express, also got off clear with a severe shaking, but his stoker was so severely scalded that his life is despaired of. All the carriages in the Boston train were more or less injured, and thrown down the embankment on the up side of the railway. The body of one man - apparently a fisherman, being dressed as a sailor and wearingn high boots - was taken out from beneath the debris of a carriage at the bottom of the embankment. Two other passengers were seriouly hurt, and many sustained severe injuries. As far as has been ascertained at present, none of the passengers in the express train have suffered seriously. About eight o'clock a special train arrived from Grantham, into which the express passengers were transferred and brough on, in the first instance, to that station. Meantime gangs of labourers were set at work to clear the line, and intelligence of the disaster was sent on to the authorities at King's-cross. MR. COCKSHOTT, superintendent of the Great Northern Railway, with MR. JOHNSON, the engineer, had only left Grantham at three o'clock the same afternoon on their return to London, but on receipt of the telegraphic news, a special train left London for this place, where it has just arrived, bringing MR. OAKLEY, general manager; MR. COCKSHOTT, the superintendent; MR. CARR JACKSON, consulting surgeon to the railway, and other officials.

    01/17/2009 02:33:46