A very serious accident marked the first public use of
the mountain railway up Snowdon on Easter Monday. In a narrow saddle about half-way between the top and bottom of the mountain the gradient is steep and the curve very sharp. The cogwheels of the engine got out of gear, and the engine (which was not, however, coupled to the train) left the line at a tangent to the curve, plunged over the Llanberis Pass and then over the edge of the Cwmglas precipice, and was shattered to pieces on a huge boulder which it encountered in the descent. Fortunately both driver and stoker jumped off before it went over the edge, and neither of them was seriously hurt. The train, which was descending by its own weight, was stopped by the immediate application of powerful brakes. If none of the passengers had jumped out there would have been no fatal accident, and, even as it was, there was only one. Mr. Ellis Roberts, the landlord of the 'Padarn Villa Hotel,' was implored by Mr. Aitchison, the general manager, not to move, but insisted on jumping, and hurt his leg so seriously that it had to be amputated, and he died the next day. Others of the passengers who followed his example also received slight injuries, but those who remained in the carriages did not stiffer. Unfortunately, a fog came on soon after the accident ; the next train followed without any knowledge having been conveyed to its driver of the accident to its predecessor ; and there was a collision with the empty carriages, but without any grave result, as the passengers had already left them, and the occupants of the second train were only jarred. The accident was an ill-omen for the railway,
and we only wish that it might cause its disuse. Half the charm of mountain scenery is due to the comparative solitude of the mountain summits, and the mountain railways now becoming so common, by taking a crowd to disturb that solitude, dissipate all the magic of the scene.
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