The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-20 00:00:00

THE FATAL BOILER EXPLOSION AT

RING'S. CROSS.

Yesterday Mr. Wakley, the coroner for West
Middlesex, resumed and concluded at the Victoria
Hotel, King's-cross, the inquiry respecting the
deaths of George Wiggins and Charles Tann, who
were killed by the explosion of the boiler of a loco-
motive engine at the works of Mr. Jay, contractor
to the Metropolitan Underground Railway.
The first witness examined was Capt. Tyler, of
the Royal Engineers, and Government Inspector of
Railways. He said he examined the engine by
the order of the Board of Trade on the Bth inst. at
the King's-cross terminus of the Great Northern,
Railway. He found the engine lying on its side.
The crown of the firebox had been blown in, and it
had been forcibly detached from the other three sides.
In some places it had given way at the rivets, in
others the whole of the plates had been torn
through. The inside of the firebox was a fiat sur-
face immediately over the fire. It was, in conse-
quence of its formation and position, the weakest
part of the boiler, and was subjected to a very
severe strain when high pressure was employed.
To show the strain it would have to bear at a pres-
sure of 701 b. to the square inch, a force equal to 43
tons would be exerted; at 801 b., 49 tons ; at 901 b.,
55 tons ; and tit 100 lb. to the square inch, 61 tons.
Looking to the crown of the firebox, it was plain
that it was not originally carefully constructed.
The roof stays were not in good form ; they were
defective in strength, and were not properly sup-
ported on the walls of the firebox. Some of them
had been bent by. the strain to which they had been
subjected. They had been bolted to the copper
plate in a very irregular manner. Having minutely
described the construction of the engine, he con-
tinued :—The principal defect in the roof stays was
the want of length and of proper support at the
ends. They were short to the distance between the
waits in which they should have been supported,
as they had been fixed according to a custom which
had been too much practised, with the end resting
upon the screw of the rivet which joined the crown
plate to the front and back walls of the firebox, in-
stead of being made to rest upon the walls ; and it
was this defect which had been the main cause of
the weakness, and which, no doubt, led to the ex-
plosion. It was usual in cases of boiler explosion
to attribute the effects which they produced to ex-
traordinary pressure of steam generated suddenly
in the boiler in consequence of the firebox becoming
heated. In the present instance it had been sug-
gested that the water in the boiler might have been
so exhausted as to heat the crown of the firebox,
and that water might have been poured upon it in
its heated state, the engine suddenly started, a sud-
den generation of steam might have resulted, and
the explosion then took place. For several reasons
he believed that nothing of the sort would have
produced the explosion, as he understood that
the engine was standing still at the time
of the explosion. He could come to no other
conclusion but that the boiler gave way
i❑ consequence of the weakness of its construc-
tion, and at a pressure not very much exceeding
that at which it was, ordinarily employed, and at a
pressure at which it ought to be safe. As a rule,
boilers should be constructed to resist a strain six
times as great as that which they were ever likely
to sustain. The strain ought to be proved by hy-
draulic pressure, not only when first constructed,
but in after years. Looking at the frequency of
, boiler explosions, it became a matter for serious
consideration whether it was not desirable that
precautions of this description should be enforced
by law. If precautions were enforced, these explo-
sions would be as rare as they were now frequent,
and a benefit would be conferred on those who
manufactured boilers as well as en those who pur-
chased them, and on those whose lives were continu-
ally endangered by the increasing use of them on
railways, in factories, at sea, and wherever steam
boilers were employed. The class of explosion now
under consideration was one which had been by no
means uncommon, as there were similar rases in
which the crowns of fire-boxes had been blown in ;
on the 16th of August, 1859, at Lewisham, on the
South-Eastern ; in October, 1859, at Lewes, on the
Brighton Railway ; in July, 1858, on the North
British Railway, &c. ; and he feared that there
were too many engines now working in which
similar danger was continually incurred. The
cause of the explosion lay in the original construc-
tion of the fire•box.
The Coroner said the jury had to thank Captain
Tyler for his valuable statement.
Mr. Wallis, the house-surgeon of the Great Nor-
thern Hospital, deposed that Church, one of the
sufferers, was not in a fit state to be examined.
No more witnesses were examined, and the room
was then cleared.
The jury having deliberated for about an hour
and a-half, the public were re-admitted.
The Coroner said the jury had decided not to
hear the evidence of Church, as they did not think
he could throw any light upon the matter.
An open verdict was then returned, to the effect
that the deceased men Wiggins and Tann met their
deaths by the explosion of a boiler at the works of
Mr. Jay, contractor to the Metropolitan Railway,
and that there was no evidence to show that any
person was criminally responsible for their deaths.
The jury also suggested that Captain Tyler's re-
port should be submitted to the Government.
The inquiry then terminated.

COUNTRY MARKETS.