The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-08-12 00:00:00

FEARFUL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

A fearful railway accident occurred on Monday
at midnight between Radstock and 'Wallow, on the
Bath and Evercreech branch of the Somtrset and
Dorset Railway. The line is a single one worked
j ',lndy by the Midland and London and South-
Western on the absolute block system., An excursion
train from Bournemouth to Bath arrived at Radst-
in safety. It then proceeded onwards to Bath, but was
stopped at the Foxcote Colliery siding, a mile
below Radstock. After a halt of a few minutes the
train proceeded towards Bath, but had only run a
couple of hundred yards when a special train from
Bath to Radatock came round a sharp curve, and
the two engines, which weighed fifty tons each, dashed
into each ot.ber with great violence. The men in charge
of the Bournemouth train escaped, but a large number
were injured more or less seriously. Ths Radstock
train, the speed of which was much greater, was not so
fortunate. Its first three carriages were thrown one
upon the other, and the passengers, almost without one
exception, killed. Toe first was the van, in which a
guard named Wells was travelling. He W1%3 killed on
the spot, and the next was a third-class coach, in which
most of the passengers were travelling, and then
fAlowed a composite first and second class carriage.
The latter was swung round and pitched upon the
embankment, the few passengers it contained escaping
with injuries. The middle carriage of the three
dashed into the one Mora it; both were broken to
pieces, and the passengers were mixed up with the
wreckage in such a way as to render it impossible
to discern in which of the coaches they had been
travelling. A man named Godfrey, who, like most
of the fourteen passengers killed, was returning to
Radstock from the Bath Regatta, was imprisoned
between the engine buffers and the guard's van
for three hours. He was sensible nearly all the
while, but shortly after he was extricated he died.

stock I

The colliery officials and Dr. Worger and other
local medical men came up; the wounded were
attended to and removed to the Bath Hospital or to
the adjacent houses, and the work of extricating the
killed was carried on with all possible vigour by a large
body of men sent by the company. This work, how-
ever, was a tedious one, as the debris were interlocked.
If rough maasures had been resorted to the unfortunate
dead would have been still more mangled than they
were from the results of the collision. Large fires
were lit with the fragments of carriages on the vege-
table gardens skirting the line, and the labour was
urgently pursued under the direction of Mr. Dyford,
superintendent of the line; Mr. Fisher, locomotive
superintendent; Mr. Railway, of Bath, and other
officials. It was nearly 12 hours after the accident
occurred before the whole of the dead were extricated.
Meanwhile, of course, the traffic of the line was com-
pletely interrupted, and on its being resumed pas-
sengers had to cross the scene of the accident from one
train to another.

The Correspondent of Tire Vines, in giving an account of
the accident, says :
"Toe Wimborne train had only time to travel a few
hundred yards round the curve and to acquire a
moderate speed, when, through ths clear moonlight,
the special was suddenly observed to rush
round the curve at the rate of something
like thirty miles an hour. Before either of
the drivers could materially slacken speed, the
two trains dashed against each other. Singularly
enough, neither of the engines, though badly
broken, was thrown off the metals, but the
carriages, especially those of the Bath train, were
entirely wrecked. The scene which ensued is described
by those who are only too practically accustomed to
such sights as having been heartrending in the
extreme.' Groans and piteous cries for assistance
could be heard on all sides. Several limbs were
lying about, one poor fellow being decapitated;
another man had his face crushed perfectly flat,
and a wheel weighing a couple of tons was lying on
the body of a third. A Radstock man, who had
that very day been married, was in a similar way
pinned down to the ground for four hours and a
half, and expired within a minufie or two of his
extrication frcm the carriage axle. Godfrey, a waiter
of the 'Bell' Hotel, whose name will be found in the
list of dead, was thrown from the compartment in
which he was riding over the roof of an adj )ining
guard's van and caught between the buffers. James
White, a waiter at the Waldegrave ' Arms, was also
among the killed. He is believed to be the father of
one Joseph White, who was removed with a broken
thigh to Bath Hospital.
• "The passengers in the special train appear to have
been principally in the forward carriages, and couse-
quently have suffered most. It is marvellous with
What slight injuries the Wimborne passengers
escaped, their train havinz like the other, been
somewhat lightly laden. With one exception, the
men in charge appear to have been more fortunate
than could have been hoped for. George Shepherd,
the stoker of the special train, sustained some con-
tusions and a general shock to his system. Neither
of the drivers was at all injured, but the B%th
guard, Thomas Willis, aged 34, had his brains knocked
out. He had been in the company's employ 15 years,
and leaves a wife and six children. He was well-
known and much liked by passengers on the line. A
few years ago he wrote some verses in memory of
Carter, the engine-driver, who was killed by his train
running over the viaduct at Shepton Mallet."

Fourteen bodies were identified during the morning
and removed to a barn near the scene of the accident,
the building having been offered for that purpose by
Mr. Oxenford, farmer. Mr. S. Craddock, Coroner for
tue Division, visited the locality in the morning, while
paesiog to the adjourned inquest as to the cause of the
accident to the Fiying Dutchman, at Burton, and in
the afternoon his deputy, Mr. R. Biggs, travelled from
Bath in a special train to open the inquiry into this
fresh disaster.
Hilled.—William Godfrey, waiter at the "Bell" Hotel.
Radstock ; James White, waiter at the " Waldegrava Arms,"
itadst.ick ; George Saunders, wife, and infant, itadstock ;
Mrs Chiral's, wife of a watchmaker, Itidstock ; Mrs. Kidd;
two children, zames unknown; Charles Gouldiog and wife,
Midsomer Norton; Thomas Willis, guard of special train.

Wounded, in Bath Hoapital.—Frank Henry Emery, Bran-
don-villa, 134, Ashley-rolvi, Bristol, merchant's clerk, fracture
of left thign ; George Quick, Bath, contusions ; Joseph
Wbite, Radstock, fractured thigh; Thomas Slmmonds,
Paulton, severe fracture of thigh and both arms; George
She oherd, stoker of special train, contusions and general
shock.