|
Sample Quote
|
"I have the honour to report for the information of the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade, in obedience to your instruction of the 3d ultimo, the result of my inquiry into the circumstances which attended the dreadful accident that occurred on the evening of the 2d September on the Hampstead Junction Railway, close to the Kentish Town station, from a collision between a up-excursion train returning from Kew to Bow, an a down-train of empty ballast waggons, in the act of crossing from the up-line on which it stood (after being drawn out of a siding in course of construction) to the down line, when the engine of the excursion train was thrown off the rails and dragged six of the carriages after it, and then separated from the carriages, and ran down the embankment on the left side, and fell over on to its side, while the derailed carriages followed, and three of them were precipitated over the wing-wall of an under bridge into the road below, and they remained, one standing above the other, greatly damaged; the fourth rested partly on the wing-wall of the under bridge and partly over the road, with the coupling chains of the preceding carriage still attached, and partly holding it up, and the fifth remained on the edge of the embankment which is about 29 feet high at the under bridge; some of the trucks of the ballast train were thrown off the line and knocked down the embankment on the right hand aide. No less than 16 persons were either killed on the spot or received such injuries as have since caused their death, and it is probable that this number may even yet be augmented. About 20 other persons received severe concussions or had limbs broken, or were severely injured in different ways, while 301 other persons were shaken and bruised but are not considered to have been seriously hurt."
|
