3-011-842 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene of the disaster at Beloeil Bridge, near Montreal, on the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, 1864. Engraving from a sketch. '...at the foot of Beloeil Mountain...the River Richelieu is spanned by an iron bridge...A drawbridge forms the connection...[with] the Montreal side...The rule is that this drawbridge should always be supposed to be open, and that the train should therefore come to a dead stand on approaching the bridge, and not attempt to proceed until the proper signal has been given...The train, however, did not pull up at all...the engine-driver, Burney...alleges that he found it impossible to stop the train in time...the train dashed on at a great pace, and...when it arrived at the drawbridge it was found to be swung round for some boats to pass. Down this yawning abyss the cars, with their living freight, dashed headlong. The locomotive and tender, with the first five cars (baggage), went in first, the six passenger-cars piling down on top of them with terrific violence, being precipitated a distance of some seventy feet...the cars fell on one of the barges, sinking it...eighty-six bodies [were] recovered from the river. The driver of the train escaped the death which had befallen so many of those committed to his charge'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.