The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-11-06 00:00:00

RAILWAY ACCIDENT IN FRANCE.

A correspondent sends us (says the Daily News of Wednes-
day) the following narrative by a lady passenger of a serious
accident which occurred on the night of October 28 to the
train running between Paris and Marseilles :

"We left Paris Wednesday evening by the "Rapids
11, Cannes." The numbet of passengers was tre-
mendous; three hundred souls stepped into the train.
Off we went, and after a little we were all startled by a,
sudden jerk in the train which, however, righted it-
self, and on we rattled M a tremendous pace, as if it
were all right. All at once a frightful noise—a horrible
jerk—the lamp goes out and we bump along, jolting
and swaying in the most horrible way. This bumping
lasted two or three minutes, when, thank God,
the train suddenly stops—and then, the scene.
Everybody got out, and there we were, off the
line, of course, close to a precipice over the Saone
darkly flowing below; the crescent moon all we had
to see by. Well! if ever one could speak of a happy
chance, we could. One minute more, and we would—
must—have inevitably gone over a high bridge upon
which the engine had actually stopped—or rather the
two engines, for our enormously long train had to have
two. But where was the half of this long train? No-
body knew. We were suddenly in the last but two
carriages where we had before been in the front part
of the train. Men ran along the line with lanterns,
fearing awful things; and there, half a mile behind, a
frightful wreck of carriages strewed all over the two
tines of 'railway, broken and smashed for the most part,
is what they can see in the darkness of the night; but
what is most extraordinary is that only one woman was
injured—she had her leg broken; the other passengers
were only bruised by falling up against each other, and
by the fall of all the bags on the top of them. The
poor luggage guard found himself hanging over a pre-
cipice with all the luggage on the top of him, quite
unable to move or get out. His hand was injured and
he looked awfully scared when he appeared lit up by
the lantern. Our carriage was completely broken,
and hung on the axle of the wheel, off which the boxes
for grease had long since departed. We and the next
compartment were on the eve of tumbling over—and,
of course, on the side of the Saone—but Providence
had arranged a certain amount of possibility of escape,
viz., that we went off the line on the inner sidb, away
from the precipice ; else, as every one said, we must
have gone over directly, and then —? The com-
partment next ours was awful to see when day-
light broke. The glass of the windows and lamp
in powder, and the seats up-heaved like waves,
the buffers between our carriage and the next
were one over the other, and every spring and
wheel broken. It hung quite over, and so did ours.
But of course the latter part of the train was in the
worst condition. There the buffers of one carriage had
simply shot into the next, through the wall, smashing
the poor woman's leg. Hearing how awful it all looked,
I did not go and see it; thinking it was quite enough
to have witnessed our own plight, and not wishing to
increase my nervousness. It was three o'clock by my
watch, if I remember right, and then the scared
passengers running about, and the knot of people
on the high bridge, talking to the engine-driver, who
had never seen anything like such an accident before,
and who had no idea of what had happened till a
bouton d'alanne from one of the passengei s had made
him pull up. Neither of the first two carriages had as
yet left the line, but we were fast uncoupling and
ready to topple over into the river. Of course we
were always in dread of a collision from a train behind
which was expected; but men were sent right and
left to stop the traffic, for our smash blocked up both
lines. Here, then, we had to wait in the chill of the
morning, half dead with fright, for five hours. No
help could be sent from Lyons before that time. But
at last a train arrived from Lyons, and we were
slowly steamed into that station, and there allowed
time to eat something. Then, at eleven o'clock, we
gOt into another train to Marseilles, where we arrived
M eight quite done up and dead with mere nervous-
ness."