RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 293, 2 May 1889, Page 2

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

Ottawa, April 80.

News from Ontario records a terrible railway accident. An excursion train was thrown off the line, the carriages telescoped and a fire broke out. Nineteen bodies (or the charred remains of bodies) have been recovered. The scene was a terrible one.

A serious railway accident, resulting in the loss of two lives and great damage to rolling stock, occurred near Junee, N.S.W; on the 13th instant. The mail train left Junee at a quarter past ten o'clock for Hay, and when only about two miles from the station ran into a mob of cattle. The train, which consisted of ten trucks, loaded principally with hay, a second class carriage, and a composite carriage, was travelling round a curve at about 35 miles an hour. The cattle were on a culvert at the time, and twenty-two of them were literally cut to pieces by the engine and trucks as they travelled along the rails or fell on either side. The engine was thrown down a bank about ten feet deep to the left of the line, while the trucks were smashed to pieces on the right of the embankment. The passengers in the carriages were saved from a similar fate by the breaking of the couplings. None of the passengers were seriously injured, although two complained of having been hurt. The engine driver, G. M. Oates, was found lying two yards from the engine with one leg torn completely off, and in a dying condition. Ferguson, the fireman, was under the engine dead. The cattle which caused the acoident had strayed from a paddock, and were missed just before the accident. The owner went in search of them, and while endeavouring to get them off the line saw the train approachin?. He tried to attract the attention of the engine driver, who was oiling the engine, but his efforts failed. On Oates’ body there was found a paper with the following words —“ Cattle straying on the line between Junee Junction and Old Junee. Be careful.” The warning about cattle being on the line was given to Oates' before he started, the paper found in the [driver’s pocket having been written by the station master at Junee, who knew the cattle to be on the line.