MOTOR VAN WRECKED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 215, 11 September 1929, Page 10

MOTOR VAN WRECKED.

TWO OCCUPANTS INJURED. COLLISION WITH TRAIN. GLEN EDEN CROSSING MISHAP. The two occupants of a light motor van had a remarkable escape from death when the vehicle was smashed to matchwood by a goods, train at the Eden "View Eoad level crossing, Glen Eden, yesterday afternoon. The driver of the van, Mr. R. L.. Wood (19), a storekeeper at Glen Eden, sustained abrasions to the forehead and injuries to the thigh, and the other occupant,' Alfred- Christian Ipsen, a schoolboy aged 12, who lives in Clayburn Road, Glen Eden, sustained a wound on the right temple and a severely lacerated left leg. They were taken to Auckland Hospital and their condition to-day is reported, to be satisfactory.

Both occupants of the van were entangled in the wreckage, which was strewn all along the. line. People who saw the accident say that the boy managed to grasp the bars of the cowcatcher on the locomotive and draw himself from the twisted wreckage. Part of the vau, in which Mr. Wood was caught, was pounded on the side of the track by one of the driving wheels of the engine.

The crossing, which is about 300 yards on the Auckland side of the Glen Eden etation, is not regarded by the Railway Department as a dangerous one, as there is a view of the railway line for a distance of a quarter of a mile in either direction from a point on the road seventeen yards back.

The goods train, it is thought, weighed about 220 tons, and it would have been impossible to stop it immediately, even at the slow speed at which it was travelling. The train' was bound for Whangarei atid was slowing down for slninting at the Glen Eden station. It it stated'that the usual warning whistle was blown as the crossing was approached. A motor car crossed the line ahead of the van, but the second vehicle was struck broadside on by the engine. The van was cruehed and the body torn to yieees as it rolled along line.