RAILWAY CARRIAGE LEAVES RAILS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22593, 24 December 1938, Page 24

RAILWAY CARRIAGE LEAVES RAILS

DRIVEN ACROSS ROAD (MUM* A.BBOCIATIOV riLXOSIUj AUCKLAND, December 23. A new second class carriage, which had only just been delivered from the Otahuhu railway workshops, was considerably damaged during shunting tonight, when it ran through the fence of the Auckland railway station yard and mounted the footpath in Beach road. In its course it ripped the concrete and steel buffer stop at the end of the shunting line right out, and then smashed cleanly through the fence. The edge of the footpath, which has a step down into the yard, was broken into pieces, and the pavement itself was torn up for a distance of several yards. The carriage stopped when it was 15 feet across the footpath. The damage to the carriage was confined to the end which had struck the buffer. The vestibule was crushed back on to the seating compartment, the steel rods of the envelope being bent into a semi-circular shape, and the undercarriage was also damaged. After freeing the wheels of obstacles the carriage was pulled back into the station yards. Another carriage, which was coupled to the damaged one when the mishap occurred, was not affected.

Mrs Ellen Carroll, the oldest Newfoundlander, celebrated her 111 th birthday by travelling to St. John’s from her home in North river, 60 miles away. She hopes to visit the All-Newfoundland Agricultural Exhibition.