TRAIN WITHOUT DRIVER

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 11784, 31 July 1935, Page 3

TRAIN WITHOUT DRIVER

Derailment on Main Trunk Line FUMES OVERCOME CREW IN ■■■■ TUNNEL. . Auckland. July 30. Its driver and fireman both un- 1 conscious, a goods train emerged from a tunnel on the Main Trunk line at 2 o'clock this morning with no one in control. It ran on to a side line, and crashed into a post, and' the engine and eleven trucks were derailed. The train was the midnight goods from Taumarunui to Te Kuiti, and the tunnel was a long one at Poro-o-tarao, about 20 miles from Te Kuiti. The driver and fireman were overcome by smoke fumes in the tunnel, and were afterwards removed to hospital. After treatment they went home. The train had been switched to the side line to enable a train from the north to pass, otherwise, upon emerging from the tunnel, it would have travelled along the Main Trunk line, with perhaps worse results. Traffic on the line-was delayed four hours, and the Main Trunk and Limited expresses arrived in Auckland as one train. The driver of the train was Mr Westneath, and the fireman was Mr J. Ready. . A call was made for a doctor when the first express reached Waimiha, about six miles south of the tunnel, and it was fortunate that Dr. Ritchie, of the Wellington office of the Public Health Department, and Mr E. B. Boisen, a St. John Ambulance worker, were on hoard. They at once responded, , A motor car was requisitioned by the railway officials and a party set out on a Journey over difficult roads in rain and thick weather, to Poro-o-taroa. Although the distance between the two places is only six or seven miles, it took two hours to make the trip, for they had to cover the last three or four miles on foot.

Mr Boisen said that when they, reached the wreck both driver and the fireman had been taken, after much difficulty, out of the cab of the engine and conveyed to a railway hut. ■ "They were only semi-conscious when we arrived.” said Mr Boisen. They could not speak coherently, but seemed to be greatly worried oyer’ the smash. "We did all we could for them, Dr. Ritchie advised that they should be transferred as speedily as possible to the Taumarunui Hospital. Their condition was not regarded as serious, but both were suffering acutely from shock."