Hunt, feeling satisfied thereupon, left the box and rejoined his train, but, as a further precaution, thrust some fog signals into his pocket, which he placed on the rails of the down line. In less than ten minutes after the collision the driver and guard of the coal train set off to Huntingdon for assistance. They had not proceeded more than 800 yards when the Leeds down express, which had started from London at 6 p.m., was discerned dashing at top speed through the blinding storm. The driver of the coal train furiously sounded his whistle, while the guard waved his red lamp frantically to arrest the express. But it was too late, and it plunged into, and literally cut its way through, the wreck of the Scotch train.
The scene was a terrible one. The howling storm, the heartrending shrieks of the injured, the shouts of the rescuers and cries for help, the lurid glare of the burning wreckage, produced a scene never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. All together fourteen persons were killed.
THE SCENE OF THE HEATHFIELD DISASTER.
Lancaster, Tunbridge Wells, Photo
The South-Eastern Railway has long enjoyed a remarkable immunity from railway smashes, but this record was sadly marred a few months ago, when three persons were killed in a stationary train while standing outside St. John's station, near New Cross, by the Hastings express, through the inadvertence of the signalman, crashing into it from behind. Fortunately, owing to the dense fog prevalent, the express was only travelling at about eight miles an hour; but even then the concussion was sufficiently violent to telescope the guard's van into the carriage immediately preceding it, smashing it to pieces as if it were constructed of cardboard. It is wonderful that more lives were not lost.
