The Yorkshire Evening Post Friday 30th March 1900
GOODS TRAIN WRECKED NEAR BARNSLEY
DRIVER AND FIREMAN SEVERELY INJURED
BURIED UNDER THE DEBRIS FOR AN HOUR
About half past two o'clock this morning serious accident occurred on the Greet Central Railway at Smithies, near Barnsley, an express goods train being wrecked and the driver and
Fireman injured. The train was from East Ardsley to Annesley, the junction with the new main line to London. The train was traveling at express speed, and just below the foot bridge at Smithies the engine left the lines, and many waggons mounted the engine, forming a strangely confused mass of wreckage to a considerable height, and completely blocking all the lines.
The driver, Richard Shenton, and the fireman, Bernard Outram, of Staveley, were buried for about an hour, and when recovered were badly injured. They were subsequently taken to the Beckett Hospital, Outram is badly scalded all over the body.
At ten o'clock the line had not been cleared, and passenger traffic from Wakefield is seriously delayed.
Writing later, our Barnsley correspondent says the cause of the accident has not yet been ascertained, but it appears that the engine left the metals turning ‘diagonally into trucks standing in the siding. The train was traveling at big speed, and the waggons in the front part of the train leaped upon the engine, end formed a big heap of wreckage, blocking all the lines. The engine itself was completely buried, end the driver and fireman had a lucky escape. Both men are suffering badly from shock, but Outram is the more seriously injured. Fortunately the guards van kept the metals, and the guard escaped injury beyond a severe shaking.
