Transport: Cow

Pounding south one night last week, the crack Paris-Toulouse night express sped toward sleeping Chateauroux. Outside of town, with braked wheels flaming, the express smashed into two freight cars and curled up in a heap of tortured junk, from which trapped passengers screamed for help until long after dawn.

The casualty list: dead, 18; injured, 30.

The cause: a cow, which had leaped from a cattle car as the freight backed into a siding, fell beneath the wheels, derailed two cars in the path of the express.