Litchfield enquirer., 1875-11-11

Ing car of the train had swept over the
 body Of the horse and the disconnected
 truck, which were thus brought in con-
 tact with its own wheels. which in their
 turn were also torn of and 80 great was
 the impetus that in this way all of the
 four passenger cars which composed that
 part of the train were suecessively driven
 clean of their rolling gear, and not only
 dld they then slide of the track, but they
 crossed railroad siding which happened
 to be at that point. went down an em-
 bankment some three or four feet in
 height, demolished fence. passed into
 an adjoining field, and then at last, after
 gianclng from the stump of large oak
 tree, they finally came to a stand still some two hundred feet from the point at
 which they had left the track. There was
 not m this case even an approach to tel escaping on the contrary, each car rested perfectly firmly in its place as regarded
 all the others, not person was injured, and when the wheelless train at last be- came stationary the astonished passengers
 got up and hurried through the doors, the
 very glass in which as well as that in the windows was unbroken. Here was an in- disputable victory of skill and science over accident, showing most wildly to what an infnitesimal extreme the dangers incident to telescOping may be reduced.
 THE DIFFERENCE. 1854 AND 1874.
 The vast progress in this direction made within twenty years was again even more forcibly illustrated by the results of two accidents almost precisely similar in char acter, which occurred, the one on the Great Western Railroad of Canada, in October, 1854, the other on the Boston & Albany. in Massachusetts, in October, 1874. In the first case a regular train made up of locomotive and seven cars, while approaching Detroit at a speed of some twenty miles an hour, ran into q gravel train of fifteen cars which was backing towards 1t at speed of some ten miles an hour. The locomotive of the passenger train was thrown completely of the track and down the embankment. dragging after it baggage car. At the head of the passenger portion of the train were two second class cars filled with em- igraDts both of these were telesc0ped and demolished, and all their unfortunate occupants either killed or injured. The front of the succeeding frst-class car was then crushed in, and number of those in 1t were hurt. In all, no less than forty seven persons lost their lives, while sixty others were maimed or severely bruised. So much for collision in October, 1854
 In October, 1874, on the Boston < AL bany road, tine regular New York express train, consisting of locomotive and sew en cars, while going through the night at a speed Of forty miles an hour, was sud. denly, near the Brimfeld station thrown by misplaced switch into siding upon Vvh1 nh 1R~ were standing. The train was thoroughly equipped, having both Miller platform and Westinghouse brake. The six seconds which interyened, in the darkness, between notice of displacement and collision, did not enable the engineer to cheek percepti- ply the speed of hif train, add when the blow came It was a simple question of strength to resist, The shock must have been tremenduOus, for the locomotive and tender were flung of the track to the right and the baggage car to the lef., ths tween the siding and the main track and resting obliQuely over the latter. The forward end of the first passenger car was thrown beyond the baggage car up over the tender, and It's rear end as well as the forward end of the succeeding car, was in- jured. As in the Peterborough case, seyer- al of the trucks were jerked out from un- der the cars to which they belonged, but not person on the train was more than slightly bruised, tho cars were not discon- nected, nor was there a suggestion even of telescoping. Such contrasts are their own best comment.
 THE VERSAILLES ACCIDENT IN lS42.
 Going back once more to the early days, a third of a century since, before yet the periodical recurrence of slaughters had caused either train brake or Miller plat form to be imagined as possibilities, be- fore, indeed, there was yet any record of what we would now consider a regular field day, with it's long train of horrors, including in the grisly array death by crushing, scalding, drowning, burning, and impalement-gO- ing back to the year 1850, or thereabouts, we find that the railroad companies ex- perienced a notable Illustration of the. truth of the ancient adage that it never rains but it pours for it was then that the long immunity was rudely broken in upon.
 After that time disasters on the rail seemed to tread upon one aDother's heels in quick and frightful succession. With in a few months of the English catastro- phe of Dec. g, 1S41, there happened in France one of the most famous and most horrible railroad slaughters ever recorded. It took place on the 9th of May, 1842 It was the birthday of the king, Louis Phil lippe, and, in accordance with the usual practice, the occasion had been celebrated at Versailles by great display of the fountains At half past five o'cOck these stopped playing, and general rush en- sued for the trains then about to leave for Paris.
 That which went by the road along the left bank of the Seine was densely crowd ed, and was so long that it required two engines to draw 1t. As it was moving at a high rate of speed between Bellevue and Meudon, the axle of the foremost of these two locomotives broke, letting the body of the engine drop to the ground. It instantly stopped. and the second loco motive was then driven by its impetus on top of the first, crushing its engineer and fireman, while the contents of both the fre-boxes were scattered over the roadway and among the debris. Three carriages crowded with passengers were then piled on top of this burning mass, and there crushed together into each other The BOOTS 0I tue bTa1n were All IOCkeO, 88 was then, and, indeed. is still the custom in Eu- rope, and 1t so chanced that the carriages had all been newly painted. They blazed up like pine kindiings. Some of the car riages were so shattered that portion of those who were in them were enabled to extricate themselves, but no less than for ty were held fast and of these such as were not so fortunate as to be crushed to death in the first shock perished hopeless 1y in the flames before the eyes of throng of impotent 1ookers-On. Some fifty-two or three persons were supposed to have lost their lives in this disaster, and more than forty others were injured the exact number of the killed, hOG ever, could never be ascertained, as the telescOping of the cars on top of the two locomotives had made veritable holocaust of the most hideous description. Not only did whole families perish tOgether-in one case no less than eleven members of the same family sharing common fate-but the remains of such as were destroyed could be neither identified nor separated.