Montparnasse derailment

Rare card · No. 31748

The Granville–Paris Express overran the buffer stop and derailed at its Gare Montparnasse terminus at 16:00 on 22 October 1895. With the train several minutes late and the driver trying to make up for lost time, the train approached the station too quickly and the driver's application of the railway air brake was ineffective. After running through the buffer stop, the train crossed the station concourse and crashed through the station wall. The locomotive fell onto the Place de Rennes below, where it stood on its nose. Although all passengers survived, a woman in the street below was killed by falling masonry.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Photo credited to the firm Levy & fils by this site. (It is credited to a photographer "Kuhn" by another publisher [1].), Public domain