Terrible Railroad accident.
--A terrible railroad accident occurred on the Petersburg Railroad last Friday morning, by which four men were killed and two others wounded. The freight train left Petersburg for Richmond at five o'clobk A. M., the engineer, wm. A. Perdue; the conductor, J. T. Bragg; the fireman, H. c. Deales, and wm. Parish, a brother-in-law of the conductor, riding on the engine. when in the deep cut two miles and a half this side of Petersburg, and exactly opposite the residence of Mr. James Dunlop, the boiler of the engine blew up with a tremendous noise, which was heard at a distance of ten miles. The engineer, with both legs and his right arm blown off and his head horribly mangled, was thrown over into an adjacent field. The conductor's right leg was blown off. He survived perhaps a half an hour. Deales, the fireman, and Mr. Parish were scalded to death. A negro train hand was badly wounded in the head by a flying fragment of the engine, and a soldier who was with the train as a corn guard was slightly wounded in the face.The engine, the Thomas Dodamead, a first-class machine, worth $56,000, was literally blown to atome, and is a total wreck.--The tender and two forward cars were badly crushed. The force of the explosion was such as to stop the train on the instant, though it was running at the rate of ten miles an hour. Some idea of the violence of the concussion caused by the explosion can be formed from the fact that, though the engine was in a deep cut at the time, every pane of glass in the windows of Mr. Dunlop's house, a hundred yards off, were broken out. The explosion being heard in Petersburg, and the cause conjectured, assistance was immediately sent to the wrecked train.
Two of the victims of this disaster--Mr. Bragg, the conductor, and Mr. Parish--were natives of Fluvanna county, whither their remains have been sent. The cause of this explosion must ever remain a mystery, as all those who might properly explain it perished by it. Probably the engineer was carrying an unlawful amount of steam, a thing which, however, other engineers have done a thousand times before with impunity. But conjecture is useless where there is no fact upon which it can be based.
