30 SEPTEMBER 1854, Page 11

BURYING ALIVE IN RAILWAY TUNNELS.

[COMMUNICATED BY AN ENGLNEKR.]

A RAILWAY tunnel on the Leeds Northern Railway has fallen in, im- peding a train and then partially burying it. The consequent injuries were not by suffocation in the tunnel, but by collision outside the tunnel as one of the consequences. Why the tunnel—not yet over five years old— fell in, we have yet to learn ; but we can picture to ourselves the horror of a buried train and the sufferers dying in agonies. We believe this is the first instance of the kind after the opening of a line, Death thus, in the process of construction, is the more legitimate thing, for which navvies are paid like coal-miners; and as long as they will take risks not altogether unavoidable, and their paymasters are content, the public do not inter- fere. But when risks occur which the public are not paid for and are not capable of estimating, the question becomes very serious. iv:. know that bridges fall down from long-continued vibration, and there is no apparent reason why tunnels similarly constructed should be exempt from the same conditions. Tunnels are of various kinds ; some cut through solid rock and needing no lining, some through broken masses, some sand and gravel, and some clay; and in addition to this, some ere wet and some are dry. When not solid rock, the tunnels are lined with arches of brick or of stone, some set in cement and some in common mortar. If the foundations were perfectly secure against sinking, rapidly hard- ening cement would be best. In other cases, mortar which seta slowly is best. The foundations of the arch are usually an in- verted curve of brick or stone, on which is laid ballast, on the ballast the sleepers' and on the sleepers the rails. The processes of destruction may be several,—crushing of the arch from unequal bearing of the superin- incumbent weight; percolation of water damaging the brick or stone, and washing out the cement or mortar ; undermining the invert, and so on. In addition to these, there is the constant process of vibration by means of the locomotives and trains which may gradually disturb the foundations. This is simply a question of the proportion between moving matter and matter at rest. We all know that London houses bear the vibration of carriages for long periods of years ; but the heaviest vibration is that of a coal-waggon of live or six tons, at two and a half miles per hour. A locomotive and tender of some sixty tons, at fifty miles per hour, is a widely different thing. The tunnel that has fallen in is a dry tunnel, manifestly for some reason inadequate ; and how are we assured that others are not so likewise ? How do we know that all tunnels are not in a gradual process of disintegration, and requiring to be renewed from time to time ? Another such accident or two' of this most fearful of all accidents, and the public will begin seriously to consider whether it is not better worth their while to construct lines on the surface without tun- nels, solely for the use of passengers, with high speed and frequent trains of specific weight, and ample-powered engines of moderate weight, on a system that shall render " accidents " an almost impossibility ; leaving the tunnel lines for slow-running goods. The holocaust of passengers on the Versailles line was a fearful sight ; but there was the con- solation that it was in sight, with the chance of escape for the active and uninjured. The entombing, the burying alive, some hundred pas- sengers away from the light of heaven, would be a horror not yet generally imagined. We are not alarmists, but we know that accidents arise in crops from the periodical wear of material ; and this is one of the possible evils which should be foreseen and prevented after this, our first warning. If another such accident occurs, it will be the fault of the Government Inspectors, for want of due examination. It is usually the dark holes that are neglected. The examination of tunnels is not a pleasant process, and the lights used are rarely too brilliant.