Traffic is restored after track blaze

Single line to span area destroyed on C.N.R. main artery in London

New viaduct proposed.

(Staff Correspondence of The Globe.)

London, Ont., Aug. 22.—Through traffic is expected to be restored on a single line before morning across the thousand-foot gap made in the main lines of the C.N.R. west of London last night, when an eastbound Chicago-to-Montréal manifest freight was wrecked and burned.

London Township officials opened negotiations this afternoon with C.N.R. toward the construction of a completely new and wider viaduct to replace that at Oxford Street destroyed by the wreck and resulting conflagration. Whether the abutments will be of any use is an open question, due to the fact that the fire burned with furious heat across the viaduct for nearly eighteen hours, fed first by thousands of gallons of gasoline and oil, and later by lard and lubricating oil that rolled like burning lava inches deep on the road and in adjoining fields. Rail traffic was routed for Windsor via the London and Port Stanley Railway and St. Thomas today, while through freight and passengers for Toronto and the east were detoured through Sarnia and Stratford.

This morning crews of the London and Sarnia auxiliaries found a battered hat at the edge of the wreck, strengthening the fear that some transient may have lost his life when the snapping of a locomotive ale piled up thirty cars and set them aflame. The destruction of the wreckage by fire was most complete, and not a trace remains to indicate whether or not any one died in the wreckage. No member of the crew was hurt. The property loss, including cars, roadbed and freight shipments, mostly consigned from Chicago for overseas via Montréal, is estimated at around $300,000.

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Railways: C.N.Rys.

Stations: London

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