SECRET INQUIRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 172, 24 July 1933, Page 5

SECRET INQUIRY.

RAIL ACCIDENTS.

OUTCRY IN NEW SOUTH WALES

IS "ECONOMY" THE CAUSE ?

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, July 20,

A week ago a description was given of the railway accident to the Albury mail at Bowring, endangering 200 lives and causing damage to the extent of £50,000. In view of widely-expressed public apprehension, the Railway Commissioner and the Minister for Transport published statements, in which they maintained that there was no cause for alarm, assured everybody that no demand for economy would be allowed to endanger the public safety, and promised a searching inquiry into I the incident. However, two days ago the Cobar mail train, climbing up the mountains by the tortuous track which has replaced the| famous zig-zag, was derailed. Nobody was hurt, though everybody on the train was much alarmed and shaken. But the train was going only 10 miles an hour on the up grade, whereas, if that rail had broken on the down trip—well, there is a drop of 130 feet sheer at the bottom of the grade. This derailment, it has been pointed out, makes the eighth serious accident to important trains on the New South Wales lines within the past- three years. The Caves express, the Brisbane Limited! the Brisbane ordinary, the North Coast mail, the Orange express, the North West mail, and now the Melbourne express and the Cobar express have all in turn come to grief, and the damage has been traced in most of these cases to broken rails. It is true that the Railway Department has been phenomenallv fortunate, in that no lives were lost in any of these accidents. But, as one newspaper plaintively says, it is little consolation to the travelling public to know that Providence plays so large a part in the calculations of the Railway Depart- 1

ment, and demand for prompt and vigorous investigation has been loud and insistent throughout the past week. "Whitewashing." Yesterday it was announced that the promised inquiry was to start at once, but —it was to be a Departmental one. This statement was greeted by a positive storm of journalistic protest, even the "Sydney Morning Herald" echoing the demand of the "Labour Daily" for a public investigation by independent [ outside experts. Of course, as bitter experience has shown, a purely Departmental inquiry, held behind closed doors, results inevitably in the "whitewashing" of the Departmental policy involved, and that is the end of it. In this case the inquiry is now in progress, and during the opening session another "small" accident near Gosford —which might have had serious results—served to quicken the desire of the general public to discover what is the cause of all these mishaps, and whether it can be removed. We have yet to see whether the clamour against this secret procedure will induce the Government to take the people into its confidence on ihis important matter. Meantime all sorts of theories and conjectures are offered to explain the frequent recurrence of such accidents. For instance, those who have looked into the statistics of the subject know that for some reason the number of rail fractures on the N.S.W. lines is much greater than on the British railways over a very large number of train miles. As a matter of fact, the number of such breakages occurring in this State is from six to seven times as high as the British average. The difference may be due to differences in the chemical composition of the steel or to "fatigue," or to numerous other technical causes. "Chewing Up the Tracks." But there is one feature of our railway system which is supposed by many people to provide an adequate explanation. There is a type of locomotive— D 57 —which was introduced here from America because of its great hauling power. But while these monsters —they cost nearly £25,000 each —certainly help to reduce the number of trains and train crews, they are terribly severe on the line itself. "They chew up the tracks," as one expert has phrased it; and there seems little doubt that such engines, while well adapted for American conditions, are moat expensive and destruc-, '"tiv© here. No doubt this 5s £be> :

matters that will be considered at the inquiry, as the lines on which these big engines are employed seem peculiarly liable to accidents. But the general impression here seema to be that, as the "Labour Daily" has contended all along, the railway service has been rendered inefficient and unsafe by ill-directed parsimony. As "Truth" puts the case with characteristic frankness: "So many men have been sacked since the Stevens Government turned its famous corner that the railways are now running with a skeleton staff, and what men remain at work are being paid bread-line wages." More than 3000 employees have been "sacked" since the "economy campaign" started, and the men who have to keep the tracks in order—working "in all conditions, in all weathers, at all hours"—are being paid less than £3 for a 48-hours week. The case for investigation in this quarter certainly seems a strong one; but a secret Departmental inquiry will not

satisfy the people of New South Wales.