574 Original Articles. [Oct., 



ment in June last,* and which are quite sufficient to show the risk 

 incurred. 



On the 21st March last, Sir Charles Fox was travelling with a 

 brother engineer on the Great Western Railway, by the South Wales 

 train which joins the 12.50 a.m. express from Bristol to London at 

 Swindon, when he was awoke at i past 3 o'clock in the morning, near 

 Goring, by the fracture of the tyre of a wheel over which he was sitting. 

 The passengers in the other compartments of the carriage shouted with 

 him in chorus, but in vain. One of the guards who rode in the carriage 

 next behind the tender, knew nothing of what had happened until he 

 afterwards heard the break-whistle from the engine ; but a second 

 guard, in the fifth carriage, and a third guard in the seventh and last 

 carriage, both felt a shock in running over something which fell upon 

 the rails ; and they endeavoured in vain to attract the attention of the 

 engine-driver, by their hand-lamps, and by suddenly applying and 

 releasing their breaks, without themselves hearing the shouting of the 

 passengers. The engine-driver thought the train went a little heavily 

 through the Pangbourne cutting, but he attributed it to the wind, 

 which was strong, and he advanced his reversing lever "another 

 notch." Looking round afterwards to see why his train was so heavy, 

 he observed nothing wrong with it, and was only induced to pull up 

 by the red light of one of the guards. But the train ran upwards of 

 six miles and a quarter before it was brought to a stand, and even then 

 it was a mere chance that the engine-driver's attention was obtained. 

 The passengers were quite powerless, and the guards themselves were 

 making signals without result for a considerable period, during which 

 much risk was incurred. 



On the 24th of the same month, Mr. William Baker, the Engineer- 

 in-Chief of the London and North- Western Railway, was travelling 

 from Leamington to London, by the 7.25 p.m. train from Birmingham, 

 on the same railway. The train was composed, on leaving Beading, 

 of an engine and tender, a break-van, a composite carriage, a first- 

 class carriage, and a third-class (break) carriage. Mr. Baker sat with 

 Mrs. Baker, and Mr. Berkeley, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, 

 in a first-class compartment, second of five, in the composite carriage 

 behind the leading van, while Mr. Bansford, of Chancery Lane, was 

 travelling with three other passengers in the last compartment. Soon 

 after they left Reading, and a little before 10 p.m., one of the axles 

 gave way, and the carriage began to jump violently. The passengers, 

 much alarmed, waved hats, rugs, coats, and handkerchiefs, swung the 

 door backwards and forwards, shouted, and did all they could to attract 

 attention ; and Mr. Ransford even shook his handkerchief, as he 

 expressed it, frantically in a signalman's face ; but neither the engine- 

 driver, nor the guards, of whom there were two, nor the signalmen, of 

 whom there were a considerable number, perceived anything wrong 

 with the train, until the carriage left the rails on a curve at the 

 entrance to the Paddington Station, and ran with some violence against 

 the edge of the arrival platform. In making signals to attract atten- 



* Accidents on Railways, January to April, part ii., 1865. 



