A curious and alarming accident happened to the Irish Mail train which left Euston at 7.15 on Wednesday morning.

The train, which included a dining car, had travelled to a point a few hundred yards north of Watford Junction, where breakfast was about to be served, when the heating apparatus in the dining car exploded with a loud report.

Nobody was seriously injured, although several people received burns. The train was half-an-hour late on arriving at Rugby.

[From the Watford Observer of January 11, 1896]