AN ENGINE BOLTS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 29, 3 February 1900, Page 5 (Supplement)

AN ENGINE BOLTS

CAUSES A SENSATIONAL

ACCIDENT.

An alarming- accident, .fortunately unattended by injury to any person, happened, a few minutes before 6 p.m. on Monday of last week at the head establishment of Messrs Bemiet and WooJeock, butchers, in Johnstonstreet, Collingwood, Melbourne. An employee named A. Stephens was about to relieve the engineer, Robert Eumbelow, who has, been on. duty during the day. Stephens had just reached the doorway of the engine house, a new brick building about 20 feet high, with a corrugated iron roof, when he noticed that the engine which works the refrigerator was "racing" at a terrific pace. One glance sufficed to show that the governing belt had unacountably snapped. Realising the seriousness of the situation, Stephens reached forward few the starting' valve. Finding his efforts to stop the bolting engine in that way futile, he dashed up a few steps to the boiler and shut off. the power. He was too' late, however, to prevent a smash, for as he turned from the engine room there was a violent crash, and the main driving" wheel, a cast steel circle 5 feet in diameter, and weighing between (3 and 7 cwt, was flung in fragments from the crank by the.force of the velocity at which the! latter was revolving. The metal flew in all directions, portions tearing through the roof, into the brick wall and through the floor. A piece of the rim, weighing about 281b, ,'vreht first through the roof of the engine house, and after travelling about 200 yards in the air, crashed through the roof of the Railway Hotel, in Hoddlestreet, working considerable havoc upon the furniture of an unoccupied upstairs sitting room. Chairs were shattered almost beyond recognition, and an oval table, which stood in the centre of the room, was splintered. After having, as it would seem, danced like a boomerang round the room, the metal clashed against the wall at a point opposite the spot at which it, had entered, leaving a large dent in the brick work. Another section oif the wheel landed on the middle of the roadway in Yarra-street, nearly 300 yards away, in an opposite direction. The fact that nobody was injured by the flying metal is all the more a miracle in that at the hour of the occurrence pedestrian as well as vehicular traffic is usually heavier than at any other time of the day.