Train Crash

By Anna Garthwaite | Posted: Tuesday July 4, 2017

By Michael Rietveld

I sat staring out at the rushing blackness from outside the carriage. It was late. I felt myself starting to doze off into a sleep. I woke up with a start as the whistle blasted loudly. I felt the brakes slam on. People around me waking up in fright. The sound from the front of the train… a terrible, smashing, tearing sound filled the air. Metal ripping and crashing into each other. The carriage bucked as if a huge weight had rammed into it. I went flying sideways against the window. My face smacked into the wooden frame. I tasted warmth and salt, and knew my mouth was bleeding. The carriage rose up into the air and fell onto its lifeless side. After that everything went black.

I woke up to see rubble all around me. Smashed wood and coal lay all over my body. Steam from which used to be the boiler hissed furiously, threatening to burn my leg. My once clean face was now smothered in coal and dry blood. Big blisters boiled under my skin. I tried moving but the rubble was too heavy.

Debris from people walking on the canvas roof fell into my eyes and mouth. I felt the floor boards moving. I looked up over my arm and saw the sky. Over here! Shouted the man's voice from above me.

The next thing I remember is lying on a bank. I remember seeing a trench coat covering a man's head. His stiff body lying as still as a statue around the tussock grass. My face turned white and a ghastly sensation crept over my body. I suddenly felt faint. After that I passed out.

Unsure of my surroundings I sat up. After blinking a few times my sight became clear again. A kind looking nurse was standing next to me, she reminded me about the train crash and how the train derailed as it speed around the tight corner. She also told me that they had put a cast on my arm and they had to stitch a big gush in my leg.

I wrote letters to my family every day telling them what had happened and how much I missed them, knowing that I'd meet up with them really soon.

On the 4 of June 1943 the Hyde train crashed, taking many lives with it.

I am a survivor.