The Story-Making Montparnasse Train Crash

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It must be surprising that a train derailment that happened more than a century ago is still being talked about and even made movies based on it.

If you've ever been to Paris, France, you must have visited Montparnasse Station.  Even if you haven't been to the station, you've probably heard of it.  This railway station is a special place because about 128 years ago a strange kind of train accident or derailment happened at that place.

The Montparnasse derailment occurred at 16:00 on 22 October 1895 when the Granville-Paris Express overtook its buffer stop at the Gare Montparnasse terminus.  The train was several minutes late and with the driver trying to make up for lost time, it reached the station at such a high speed that the driver's application of the train's air brakes was ineffective.  After running through the buffer stop, the train went through the station and crashed through the station wall;  The locomotive fell onto the Place de Rennes below and came to rest on its nose.  Although the passengers survived, a woman in the street below was killed by falling masonry.

In addition, five people were injured in the accident.  Among them are two train passengers, a controller, an attendant and a pedestrian on the road.


The locomotive driver convicted of the accident, which killed one person and injured five passengers, was sentenced to two months in prison and a fine of 50 francs.  A train conductor was fined 25 francs for failing to apply the handbrake only for files.  Investigations revealed that this railway controller has been focusing on finalizing the files related to the application of hand brakes and has been doing them.

Due to this accident, there was no damage to the passengers traveling in the train or the train carriages and all the carriages could be evacuated easily.  It took about 48 hours to investigate the accident and do other legal work.

It is said that the railway company reached an agreement with the family of the deceased woman and promised to bear all the necessary expenses for the education of her two young children and to provide other necessary facilities.  Moreover, the company had arranged to provide jobs to her two children when they reached the appropriate age.

     An old photo of Montparnasse station       www.pinterest.com
                                                                   

At this time, a large number of people gave permission to the authorities to remove the locomotive from the place.  At first they tried to remove the locomotive from the place using 14 strong horses, but the horses could not even move it.

   Then, using a crane-like machine weighing about 250 tons, 10 men lowered the locomotive, which had fallen vertically, and then lifted it to the station.  The locomotive was so robustly constructed that it had sustained little damage at the time.

The Montparnasse train derailment is one of the most talked about accidents in railway history.  Images of the crash have been used on posters, album covers, books and even t-shirts.  It is special that a replica has been displayed in a railway museum in Brazil, commemorating this accident.  Additionally, Martin Scorsese recreated the accident in the 2011 film "Hugo".

                   Replica in a museum in Brazil –  twitter

 
                         A preview of the movie “Hugo”                                                                                                    www.dealstudios.com
                          
                                                                                 
 






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