An accident which occurred on the North-London Railway on Saturday
has created much interest in London. The place was between Canonbury and Finsbury Park, in the tunnel under Highbury, which is always a scene of excessive traffic, the trains being rarely four minutes behind each other. A little before nine a.m. a train was passed on from Finsbury Park to Canonbury, but stopped by signal at the southern end of the tunnel. Every train behind it should have been stopped, too, but the signals went wrong, and a second train came up, and also stopped in the tunnel, doing no injury. A third train, however, came on, and dashed into the second, doing damage, but not killing anybody ; and then at last came a fourth train, which " telescoped " a carriage in the third train, killed five passengers, wounded fifteen seriously, and injured slightly some fifty more. The general cause of the accident, which might happen on any suburban line any day, was the overwhelming amount of traffic, which bewilders the employes, and renders all precautions comparatively use- less, but the immediate cause was the state of the signals. The precise mischief remains to be ascertained, but it is certain that one signalman did not understand the system, and had to consult his book ; and that another, H. Hill, deposed before Colonel Yolland that the electric repeater in his signal-box for the distant up-signal was out of order, and that he had not even reported the fact. Nothing but the absolute block system, working automatically, will make these suburban lines decently safe ; but they ought, besides, to be doubled.
