One of the most serious railway accidents of recent years
occurred early on Tuesday morning outside Shrewsbury Station. An express train of fifteen carriages from various parts of the North for Bristol, which left Crewe at 1.20 a.m., was on the point of entering Shrewsbury when the engine left the, line at a curve. Most of the carriages followed the engine, and several were telescoped and piled one upon another in hopeless confusion. Eighteen persons were killed, including the driver, the fireman, one of the guards, and two Post Office officials, and about thirty persons were injured. Lord Stalbridge, the chairman of the London and North-Western Railway Company, received a telegram of sympathy from the King. On Wednesday a Board of Trade inquiry was opened at Shrewsbury. Mr. Lloyd-George was present and asked many questions. The evidence showed that when the train approached the curve it was travelling at about fifty or sixty miles an hour instead of at the regulation ten miles, and that it rushed past the signals, all of which were at danger. One signalman in his box signalled to another in a box five hundred yards nearer the station that the train was "running away." The unusual step is being taken of holding a post-mortem examination of the driver's body, which, it is hoped, may indicate his state of body or mind at the time of the accident. We note that Mr. Lloyd- George established a precedent in being present himself at the inquiry, and in throwing it open to the Press. The precedent is open to criticism, but the public is vitally con- cerned in these mysterious accidents, of which there has been a disconcerting number. In fourteen months there have been four extremely grave accidents,—at Salisbury, Grantham, Arbroath, and Shrewsbury.
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