match-boxed

Updated: August 17, 2026

It vomited forth smoke, and steam, and flames, every moment it seemed as if the woodwork of the carriages immediately behind and beneath would catch fire. The front coaches were, as the guard had put it, 'match-boxed. They were nothing but a heap of debris, telescoped into one another in a state of apparently inextricable confusion.

Richard Marsh - The Beetle