of the siding switch, which he hastened to throw. He apparently did not have time enough within perhaps five seconds. Had he succeeded in throwing it, the train would have gone on to Boston, those upon it simply knowing from the jar they had received in passing over the first frog that a switch had been set wrong. Had he left it alone, the special would have passed into the siding and there been stopped. As it was, the locomotive of the special struck the castings of the switch just when it was half thrown--at the second when it was set neither the one way nor the other--and the wreck followed. It was literally the turning of a hand. As it approached the point where the disaster occurred the special train was running at a moderate rate of speed, not probably exceeding twenty miles an hour. The engineer of its leading locomotive also perceived his danger in time to signal it and to reverse his engine while yet 700 feet from the point where derailment took place. The train-brake was necessarily under the control of the engineer of the second locomotive, but the danger signal was immediately obeyed by him, his locomotive reversed and the brake applied. The train was, however, equipped with the ordinary Westinghouse, and not the improved automatic or self-acting brake of that name. That is, it depended for its efficiency on the perfectness of its parts, and, in case the connecting tubes were broken or the valves deranged, the brake-blocks did not close upon the wheels, as they do under the later improvements made by Westinghouse in his patents, but at best remained only partially set, or in such positions as they were when the parts of the brake were broken. As is perfectly well understood, the original Westinghouse does not work quickly or effectively through more than a certain number of cars. Twelve is generally regarded as the limit of practical simultaneous action. The 700 feet of interval between the point where the brakes were applied and that where the accident occurred,--a distance which, at the rate at which the train was moving, it could hardly have passed over in less than twenty-two seconds,--should have afforded an ample space within which to stop the train. When the derailment took place, however, it was still moving at a considerable rate of speed. Both locomotives, the baggage car and six following passenger cars left the rails. The locomotives, after going a short distance, swung off to the left and toppled over, presenting an insuperable barrier to the direct movement of the cars following.