ENGINE DERAILED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22419, 4 June 1938, Page 8

ENGINE DERAILED

♦ MISHAP NEAR AUCKLAND STATION MAIL VAN DRAGGED OFF LINE [THE PRESS Special Service.] AUCKLAND, June 3. When it was within 120 yards ot the Auckland station, a small passenger train coming into the city from Henderson was derailed at about 10 o’clock this morning. None of the passengers or the train crew was injured, and the damage was confined to the comparatively slight scoring up of the permanent way. A broken spring coil beneath the engine caused the derailment. It snapped just as the engine was taking the points, which multiply the single track leading off the overhead bridge at the Parnell rise into the double track for the run into the station. The break immediately threw the engine into the wrong track. Followed by the mail van, the engine left the rails and ploughed across the edge of the sleepers into a scoria bed. Because of the slow speed to which engines coming from Parnell are restricted, the three carriages of the train did not follow the engine, but continued on the correct line until the stopping of the engine brought them to a halt. The passengers, who for the most part were unaware that there had been a derailment, were asked to walk the short remaining distance to the station. A breakdown gang then set to work to clear the track, and the carriages and mail van were quickly taken into the station yard. The engine presented raither more difficulty, but it also was removed without any disruption to the normal suburban service. For several hours a gang of workmen attended to the track.