The most graphic description of this extraordinary and terrible catastrophe was that given by the Marquis of Hamilton, the eldest son of the Duke of Abercorn whose wife and family, fortunately for themselves, occupied one of those rear carriages which were unshackled and saved. In this account the Marquis of Hamilton said:--"We were startled by a collision and a shock which, though not very severe, were sufficient to throw every one against his opposite neighbor. I immediately jumped out of the carriage, when a fearful sight met my view. Already the whole of the three passengers' carriages in front of ours, the vans, and the engine were enveloped in dense sheets of flame and smoke, rising fully twenty feet high, and spreading out in every direction. It was the work of an instant. No words can convey the instantaneous nature of the explosion and conflagration. I had actually got out almost before the shock of the collision was over, and this was the spectacle which already presented itself. Not a sound, not a scream, not a struggle to escape, not a movement of any sort was apparent in the doomed carriages. It was as though an electric flash had at once paralyzed and stricken every one of their occupants. So complete was the absence of any presence of living or struggling life in them that as soon as the passengers from the other parts of the train were in some degree recovered from their first shock and consternation, it was imagined that the burning carriages were destitute of passengers; a hope soon changed into feelings of horror when their contents of charred and mutilated remains were discovered an hour afterward. From the extent, however, of the flames, the suddenness of the conflagration, and the absence of any power to extricate themselves, no human aid would have been of any assistance to the sufferers, who, in all probability, were instantaneously suffocated by the black and fetid smoke peculiar to paraffine, which rose in volumes around the spreading flames."