The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-09-10 00:00:00

DREADFUL RAILWAY ACCIDENT IN

FRANCE.

At Charenton on Monday morning the Marseilles
express train ran into "b. slow local train, which was
being shunted out of its way. The last carriage of
the latter was dashed to atoms, and several others
were crushed. Sixteen passengers were killed and
at least as many more seriously injured. Most of the
sufferers belonged to a choral society at Ferte d'Alais,
who were on an excursion to Paris. The express orly
suffered a shock.

The accident was witnessed by the King of Siam's
brother and his suite. They were in the Marseilles
express which ran into the Corbeil train, which was
tilled with business men coming up to their offices.
The shock was terrible. Several waggons of the Cor-
nell train were shivered like fragile glass. A ladv who
was severely injured insisted on going on to Paris
by the express which had waited, and died on the
way. Nobody in the Marseilles train was wounded,
but a gentleman has been paralysed by the shock.

The Paris correspondent of the Standard gives the
following account of the accident :
" Paris was startled to-day by another accident on the
Lyons Railway, this time of a terrible nature. It occured a
a quarter to ten o'clock this morning Olonday). As far as
can be gathered, it appears that a slow passenger train from
Montargis arrived at the Charenton Station twelve minutes
behind time, and before it could be shunted on to the siding to
allow the lightning' train from Marseilles to pass, thelatter
came up and dashed into it. To add to the horror of the
event, the travellers in the Parliamentary train saw the
train from Marseilles approaching, and some of them tried
to jump out of the carriages. The driver of the slow train
put on all his steam, but it was too late, and the next
second an awful crash took place. The engine of the
'lightning train' dashed into the other, and literally
smashed four of the carriages. The scene that fol-
lowed was indescribable. For some minutes the
wildest confusion prevailed ; but the first horrible
fright over, the railway authorities Bet to organising
relief. The police and military in the neighbourhood were
soon called to the spot to assist the railway servants in their
sad task. The sight was heartrending. Heaped up in a
large mass lay the wreck of four carriages and their dying
and dead freight. To extricate the victims was a labour of
some time. Their shrieks rent the air, while their friends
and fellow-passengers gathered round, some weeping, other
fainting, and all pale with fright and terror.
" The Prefect of Police, the Procureur of the Republic,
and other officials were not long in arriving to superintend
the measures taken for the relief of the victims. Twelve
dead bodies, fearfully mutilated, and about twenty injured
were gradually extricated from the ruins, and conveyed to the
waiting-room of the Charenton aoct,Ji.
iu
attendance. M Reynotil ro,rpotor i thp Lyons Station, came
(luau lit search ot his wife and daughter, who were in the
slow train. He found both of them seriously wounded.
As the work of rescue continued the victims were discovered
to be more numerous; but great difficulty was experienced
in being able to abtain precise information, owing to the
reticence of the railway authorities.
"As far as is at present known, nineteen persons were
killed on the spot. Their bodies were subsequentlycouveyed
to a shed outside the station. The wounded are far more nume-
rous than the dead, and their injuries are for the most part very
serious. They have been dispersed in the private houses,
hospitals, and asylums of Charenton, and some, having been
for a time kept at the station, were at one o'clock sent to
Corbel. A few also elected to return to their homes in PariS
in carriages. Of these, one, a woman, did on the way. It
Is only reasonable to expect that before to-morrow morning
others will have succumbed.

"One of the railway carriages which was smashed to
atoms, was occupied by a Musical Society of La Ferte
d'Alais, which was on its way to Brighton. These un-
fortunate people furnished the largest contingent to
the victims of this deplorable accident. The follow-
ing are the names of those whose bodies had been
identified up to this evening :—M.las, Madame Milas,
M. Alphonse Gauthier, Madame Saurus, M. Vincent,
a lawyer, M. Fabre, junior, Madame Fabre, junior.
All these persons were from La Ferte d'Alais. Among the
injured are Madame Roufanneau, M. Lesage, of La Ferte
d'Alais, Madame Lesage, and their child, who has had his
two legs torn from his body. The dead include two
young children, one a boy and the other a girl,
who were not in the same carriage, and whose
bodies have not yet been claimed. It is only too
probable that their parents have shared Ulf ir sad fate.
Some of the bodies are so horribly mutilated that
identification will be difficult. It was the slow train which
furnished all the victims, the passengers of the 'Lightning'
express escaping with a severe shaking. In the latter train
was the brother of the King of Siam and his suite, who were
in no way injured."

• The Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph
wrote:—

The fearful confusion of the scene is beyond all
description, the agonising cries of the wounded being
mingled with the shrieks of the passengers imprisoned in
the wrecked train. With a sense of duty worthy of
every praise, the stationmaster, although he knew his
wife to be in the express, at once took steps for
organising a service of relief for the sufferers, who were
removed from the debris with all possible despatch.
The Siamese Princes, who have been for some days expected
in Paris, were by a curious fatality passengers in the express.
They were sound asleep in their saloon carriage when the
accident occurred, and were naturally not a little surprised
and frightened on awaking to find themselves lying on the
floor. The glass of the windows were smashed, but beyond
this the carriage had sustained no injury. The Princes got
out at once, and awaited the arrival of their landau at the
Charenton Station, whence, accompanied by the Consul-
General of Slain and the Chancellor, they drove to the Grand
Hotel, which they reached half an hour after noon.

An Englishman has given an account of the acci-
dent, in which he says
:-
"We Icft Montargis at 5.55 in the morning by the omnibus
train. Nearly all who started thence were on pleasure
bound. The third-class compartments at the end were re-
served for the Orpheonists who were going to Brighton to the
musical festival. We took them in at Ferte d'Alais, where
they were awaiting the train. Their gaiety was irre-
pressible, their banners were flying, and musical in-
struments being performed on. As we steamed off
they played a bar of the Marseillaise ' in their
waggon, and then gave it up, no doubt because of the
noise of the train rattling on. Some of them put their heads
out of the windows and blew joyous blasts. The wives of
the Orpheonists had the last compartment, the one destined
to bear the brunt of the collision. The musical sounds were
enlivening, and in our carriage we were so:animated by them
that if we had had room we should have danced. We were
to have gone straight on to Villeneuve St. Georges, but
there was a delay of another train near Mehm, in conse-
quence of which we had to stop, not only at Corbeil,
where we took up many passengers, but at Alfort
and Charenten. When we were at the latter station
those uho could put their heads out of window to hear the
Orpheonists, who were performing a serenade. As the signal
was given to start I saw the Marseilles train coining round a
long curve at full speed and heard the stationmaster yell to
a pointsman to put us on another rail. I jumped out and
called to those with me to jump out too. A lady whom I
helped out sprained her leg in the spring, and we two rushed
violently against a slender palisade and rolled into a trench
behind. I heard a tremendous crash and got up. I then saw
the end waggon in pieces. The express hit it and knocked
our train about as though it were made of cardboard. The
railway employes quickly got hatchets, spades, and crowbars to
c.ear the line and extricate the dead and wounded
from the wreck, which looked like a shambles. The corpses
were horribly mutilated. Human flesh was clogging the
machinery of the express engine. Blood flowed through the
fissures of the broken carriages. Heads were there, limbs
were there. Four of the Orpheonists' wives, and two of
their children were reduced to a horrid pulp. Four other
persons with them were killed and two wounded. A lady,
with her cheek clean torn off and torrents of blood
streaming from it, rushed about calling for her child, a
boy.. She found him on a bench, where he was sitting
with an eye hanging on his cheek. The poor
woman kissed him, forgetting her own mutilation. The boy
said. 'I am in awful pain; but its not so bad as I fancied
I thought you were killed.' A good many more people were
killed than the police reported. Their list gave thirteen in
all. I counted nineteen, of whom seven were decapitated
heads and trunks. There were it appeared to me, at least
thirty wounded. A lady had the calf of her leg carried off.
The railway employes pulled off their upper garments and
tore up their shirts to bind broken and torn but still living
human bodies."

The scene at Charenton Station during the whole of Mon-
day, until the removal of the bodies, was such as is wit-
nessed on all sad occasions of a similar character. Crowds
of idlers rushed to the place only to be steadily repulsed by
the police, who admitted those alone who were evidently in
search of a lost friend or relative. At nine o'clock in the
evening a special train conveyed the bodies of the victims
to the Paris terminus, whence they were taken to the
Morgue, only such as had not been recognised being ex-
posed to view in the public hall of that building.
As usual, in all fatal collisions, there were some truly
miraculous escapes. One of the most extraordinary was
that of a traveller who, with his wife, two children, and a
nurse, occupied seats in a second-class compartment, in
which there were five other passengers. The latter were all
killed on the spot, but of the family party only the little
girl met with her death, the others being quite uninjured.
The work of clearing.the line was carried on during the
whole of the night by torchlight, the principal obstak.le being
the enormous engine of the express, which was so disabled
that the greatest difficulty was experienced in getting it on
the rails again. The remainder of the debris, consisting of
fragments of panelling, broken wheels, axletrees twisted into
every possible shape, cushions and broken glass, was con-
veyed to Paris shortly after the accident.