2-979-685 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene of the Recent Accident on the Great Western Railway, near Hamilton, Canada West, 1857. Aftermath of '...the most terrible railroad accident that has ever occurred in that colony...Just before reaching the bridge over the Desjardins Canal the [Toronto] train left the track, by a misplacement of a switch or some other cause, and ran upon the bridge. The force of the train knocked the bridge down, and engine and cars and all plunged into the canal, thirty or forty feet below. The catastrophe was sudden and awful, and the work of death was instantaneous and complete. The locomotive and tender were entirely submerged, the baggage-car partially so...Most of the passengers in the rear of this car escaped, the remainder were drowned...Among those on board was Samuel Zimmerman, the great railway king of Canada...His death will be a disastrous blow to the business interests of the province'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.