The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art: September to December, 1851 (Classic Reprint) - Hardcover

Excerpt from The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art: September to December, 1851

Theend of the train stretched beyond the signal-post. It was but two minutes exposed, but that was enough another train coming up with unconscious rapidity, dashed into it. The precaution, which would have averted the collision, was the sending a man back with a hand but there was no one to do this duty. N fact, the few oficers present, - the break-headsman, guard, and engine man, - had a fearful press of business and responsibility thrown on them and they found themselves without definite instructions, un der circumstances for which, indeed, they had not sufficient official strength, however fully they might have been instructed. It would seem, rom the inspector's Re rt that the driver wished a pointsman to ta e a sig nal, but the man said he had other things to do. He then directed his fireman to go and tell the guard to go back with a signal. Whilst the fireman was in the act of going to tell the guard to go back, the train drawn by Brown's en ine came in sight from around the curve, an the crash took place. Could any jury convict the driver, who had asked, first, the pointsman, and then the fireman to tell the guard to o with a signal or the pointsman, who h other thin s to do; or the fireman, who could not finds the guard in an instant; or the guard, who was not told or even the driver of the advancing train, who, in unconscious security, was coming up very fast? This tragedy occurred in August, 1856. Within two months we find the same story repeated, in everything but its bloody conclusion; and this was averted only by the skill and carefulness of the driver of the assaultin train. At Woodlesford, on the Midland ine, an excursion train was detained. The weather was very f gy, and the train stretched 160 yards beyon the signal being thus unprotected by it, when another train came up. The driver was proceeding with extreme caution, and the collision was slight; but it might have been more deadly even than that of Cowlairs.

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