The front guard of our train had been killed by the
collision, and the rear guard was seriously hurt, so there was no
one to give orders. It occurred at once to my eldest brother, the
late Duke, that as the train was standing on a sharp incline, the
uninjured carriages would, if uncoupled, roll down the hill of
their own accord. He and some other passengers accordingly managed
to undo the couplings, and the uninjured coaches, detached from
the burning ones, glided down the incline into safety. From the
half-stunned guard my brother learned that the nearest signal-box
was at Llandulas, a mile away. He ran there at the top of his
speed, and arrived in time to get the up Irish mail and all other
traffic stopped. On his return my brother had a prolonged
fainting fit, as the strain on his heart had been very great. It
took the doctors over an hour to bring him round, and we all
thought that he had died.
I was eleven years old at the time, and the shock of the
collision, the sight of the burning coaches, the screams of the
women, the wreckage, and my brother's narrow escape from death,
affected me for some little while afterwards.
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