British steam engine

In 1942, a German fighter while on a bombing mission shelled a British steam engine. The pressure blew the locomotive boiler apart, tore away the chimney, dome and safety valves. The explosion was so powerful it propelled a portion of the top rim of the chimney almost a quarter of a mile. At the precise moment the boiler exploded the fighter was passing overhead and destroyed it. The train driver survived. The pilot didn’t.

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