TRAINS HELD UP.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 58, 10 March 1927, Page 8

TRAINS HELD UP.

ACCIDENT AT ELLERSLIE. AXLE OF WAGON BREAKS. AUCKLANDERS LATE FOR WORK. Hundreds of suburbanites wlio come into the city daily were late for work this moVning. There had been an accident on the railway line between the racecourse siding at Ellerslie and the railway station. This was responsible for delaying about a dozen passenger, as well as several goods trains. In some cases people coming into business were nearly two hours on the journey from the time they left their homes. In addition to ordinary suburban traffic all express trains, with the exception of the Rotorua and Wliangarei expresses, were late in getting away, and the Limited did not reach Auckland till 10.30 a.m. Cause of the Trouble. The cause of all this trouble and delay was an axle breaking on a goods train about a quarter of a mile oil the Auckland side of the Ellerslie station. The train had left the city for Onehunga at 6.45 a.m. It consisted of 15 wagons, two engines and avan, the total load being 166 tons. From the racecourse siding to Ellerslie station there is a downhill grade of 1 in 40 and everything went well till the train was within about a third of a mile of the station platform. At that spot the axle on the eleventh wagon from the engine snapped. Mishap Not Noticed. No one noticed the mishap for a time till the guard's attention was drawn to the amount of dust flying about. At first he thought it was causcu by a pass-' ing train on the "up" line. Taking no risks, however, he promptly applied the emergency Westingliouse brake and stopped the train. It was then discovered that practically a brand new axle had been broken clean off the righthand side leading wheel of an L wagon. Had it not been for the prompt action of Guard McSweeney, the accident might have had more serious consequences, for if the damaged wagon had hit the overhead bridge supports at the Ellerslie station the remainder of the train might have been piled up. As it was the broken wagon was pulled for a quarter of a mile along the track, which was found to be undamaged. Mr. D. A. Moore, car and wagon inspector at Auckland, went out and soon had a gang of men on the job. Strange as it may seem, neither the guard nor the engine crew felt any bumps. The guard was writing up his waybill at the time of the mishap and continued to do so till he noticed the dust. On examination in the Ellerslie yard it wa« found that the axle was put in during the month of February, 1925. Railway officials %nd experts state that these axles should be good for 20 years at least, and they cannot account for the number of broken ones which have occurred recently. The break in this case is all the more mysterious in that the wagon was only carrying a load of two tons. Why People Were Late. On account of the accident a single line of track had to be worked between Remuera and Ellerslie, and this was the cause of delay to all other trains. Between those stations both inward and outward trains had to be worked, by what is termed a pilot guard, on the down, or outwards track. The ordinary tablet working had to be cut out and the pilot-guard had to travel on a train proceeding from Remuera to Ellerslie, and then change over to a train which had to go from Ellerslie to Remuera, and so on till the "down" line had been certified as being in a condition for trains to travel over. At one stage of the proceiedings quite a number of trains, including the Limited from Wellington, were banked up at Ellerslie station on the inwards journey. Similar conditions prevailed at Remuera and on at least two occasions passengers were transferred from one train to another in order to give them the quickest dispatch possible under the circumstances. On account of the hold-up the buses plying for hire between the suburbs and city did an exceptionally good trade, but they could not cope with all the traffic offering; so many hundreds of people just sat in the trains and waited.