Passengers caught in runaway luxury-train horror - Car Rental News
Passengers caught in runaway luxury-train horror
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Car Rental News - 22/04/2010
Only weeks before the FIFA World Cup, the derailment of a luxury train in South Africa has killed two.
Two crew members, one of them pregnant, died when a luxury train service derailed in Pretoria, South Africa.
Passengers recounted how they were told “jump for your lives” as carriages came off the track near a station.
Perhaps as a result of the force of impact, a pregnant member of the train’s crew went into labour right after the accident. She and the baby both failed to survive.
The luxury Rovos Rail trip was running had started in Cape Town and was almost at its destination in the capital city of Pretoria when it derailed shortly before a routine change from electric to steam locomotive.
A total of seventeen carriages came off the tracks. Power tools were needed to free some survivors from the train, which was carrying 59 passengers.
A member of the rescue team recounted how victims were strewn around the area. The head of the train company was on the train at the time of the accident and screamed at other passengers to jump off while it was moving.
Among the passengers were 44 Americans, three Germans, and four each from the UK, France and South Africa.
The luxury Cape Town-Pretoria service costs up to £2,000 per person for the two-day trip.
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