SAFE-PLACING OF RAILWAY CARRIAGES.
London, 3d November 1853.
See.—In August last I happened to be travelling by railway to Paris :
about five o'clock on a fine morning, I was aroused by a smart shock ; andupon alighting from the carriage, I found that the train in which I was had
run into the train from Belgium, which, owing to some mishap of its engine, was standing at the station of Enghien. On approaching the Belgian train, I saw that its " tail" end had been completely smashed. The last two ve- hicles were luggage-vane. So perfect had been the destruction, that until I was informed of the contrary I believed that there had been but one luggage-van, but was puzzled to account for an extra pair of wheels. The packages and most of their contents were broken to pieces. Even the next carriage, which was a second-class passenger-carriage, was damaged, and several of its inmates were severely bruised. Had passenger- cars been in the place of those luggage-vans, every person within them must have been most certainly killed. Having observed the constant habit on the English railways of placing passenger-carriages last in a train, I take the liberty of narrating my emi- nence of the danger of such a course. A. H.
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