HUTT TRAIN SMASH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 281, 26 November 1943, Page 4

HUTT TRAIN SMASH

SEARCH FOR CAUSE EVIDENCE AT INQUIRY (P.A.) WELLINGTON, this day. The inquiry into the derailment of a train from Upper Hutt on the morning of November 8, which resulted in the deaths of three persons and injury to 20 others, was continued to-day. Sir Francis Frazer is chairman, and with him are Mr. John Wood, former engineer-in-chief of the Public Works Department, and Mr. H. L. Cole, secretary of the New Zealand Institute of Engineers. Hubert Garibaldi Stevens, assistant district engineer, dealt ,with variations of the track in the area of the accident from stam'qrd. He stated they were withi; f practical working limits, and he could find nothing among them to account for the derailment. Mr. Watson: Is any officer of the Department going to advance any theory of the possible cause of derailment? Witness: I doubt if anyone can. The chairman summed up to witness a sequence of events which might have occurred as a result of the variations of which witness had spoken. Witness said he did not think those factors would cause the derailment. The Chairman: Adding all those factors together you would not rule them out as contributing to the derailment? —No. ■ . The Chairman: I'ou could conceive of no other possibility?— No. The Chairman: It seems to me we have to reach a conclusion by a process of exclusion. . , . Edmond Hassett, engme-dnver, said that on the day before the accident he felt a distinct lurch on the inside rail near where the derailment occurred. It did not cause him apprehension for the safety of the train, but he reduced speed. Lower Speed Restriction Joseph Dominic Hoey, ganger -of the Silverstream section of the line, gave evidence regarding strain placed on the line by the use of WAB engines. On a recent Sunday he found damage to curves. The track had been pushed out of line and several fastenings broken. He attributed this to excessive speed. After the damage he had taken steps to reduce permissible speeds on sixchain curves to 15 miles an hour. To Mr Watson witness said that although he had been instrumental in lowering the speed restriction he would not say 25 miles an hour was not safe over the curves. He blamed all the trouble on WAB engines. The sea wall was the proper graveyard for them.