A unusual rail accident at the station Montparnasse Of Paris the October 22, 1895to 15:55: a train, trying to recover the delay accumulated during the journey, did not stop at the end of the track, breaking the wall of the station and derailing in the middle of the road. Unfortunately in the accident there was 1 victim and 5 injuredincluding two passengers, a firefighter and two railways employees. Do you think he became so well known at the time that, many years later, he was also taken up by Martin Scorsese in his film Hugo Cabret. But how did such a thing happen?
The reconstruction of the accident
The train in question was theExpress number 56 coming from Grandville, in Normandy. The vehicle was made up of a steam locomotive, a coal wagon, two luggage wagons and ten passenger carriages, including a living room wagon and a last wagon for luggage transport. On board they were present 131 passengers.
Unfortunately, during the journey the train accumulated of the delay at the Versailles-Chantier station and for this reason the driver Pellerine guillame He decided to increase the speed to recover time. Unfortunately when the vehicle was too close to the station, he realized that the braking system It was defective and that, therefore, would never have managed to stop in time. They then tried to operate the Emergency brakesbut unfortunately not even those were sufficient: the train was unable to stop in time, exceeded the repelling at the end of the tracks and hit the wall of the station to approximately 40 km/hending up on the street, near a newsstand. The only victim was not on board the train but she was the seller of newspapers outside the station, such Marie-Augustine Aguillardwhich was fatally hit by a collapsed portion of masonry.
The consequences of the accident
Obviously, as anticipated, the news quickly made the tour of all the front pages in the world – also considering the fact that the locomotive had remained substantially integral. Do you think that at the time to contain the chopped chops and journalists they were sent 120 municipal guards, of which 20 on horseback and 100 on foot. Even some people were so morbidly attracted to this event that they took tickets to enter the station without really having to take a train, but only to have the opportunity to see the scrap from inside the building.
And instead what happened to the drivers? Pellerine guillame he was sentenced to Two months of imprisonment And he had to pay a fine of 50 francs – that is, approximately 22 thousand euros current – While Albert Mariettethe second pilot in office, had to “only” pay 25 francsequivalent to about 11 thousand euros.
