Many concussions give no warning of their approach, while others do, the
usual premonitory symptoms being a kind of bouncing or leaping of the
train. It is well to know that the bottom of the carriage is the safest
place, and, therefore, when a person has reason to anticipate a
concussion, he should, without hesitation, throw himself on the floor of
the carriage. It was by this means that Lord Guillamore saved his life
and that of his fellow passengers some years since, when a concussion
took place on one of the Irish railways. His Lordship feeling a shock,
which he knew to be the forerunner of a concussion, without more ado
sprang upon the two persons sitting opposite to him, and dragged them
with him to the bottom of the carriage; the astonished persons at first
imagined that they had been set upon by a maniac, and commenced
struggling for their liberty, but in a few seconds they but too well
understood the nature of the case; the concussion came, and the upper
part of the carriage in which Lord Guillamore and the other two persons
were was shattered to pieces, while the floor was untouched, and thus
left them lying in safety; while the other carriages of the train
presented nothing but a ghastly spectacle of dead and wounded.
—_The Railway Traveller’s Handy Book_.