DERAILMENT OF WAGGONS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22662, 17 March 1939, Page 12

DERAILMENT OF WAGGONS

RAILWAY MISHAP NEAR MAKIKIHI TRAFFIC DISLOCATED LINE DAMAGED; PASSENGERS ESCAPE INJURY i Eight waggons or more on the mixed passenger and goods train from Oamaru to Timaru (leaving at 7.25 a.m.) wore derailed about a mile and a half or two miles north of Makikihi station at 10.30 yesterday morning, causing a scattering of coal, meat, and other goods carried, and damage to the rolling stock and permanent way. The train carried two passenger carriages at the end, with a number of school children on board, but these suffered no damage and nobody was injured. The passengers were conveyed to their destination by a bus brought from Timaru.

The damage to the line was repaired and the scattered goods were removed by about 4 p.m. yesterday, but in the meantime railway traffic was held up. The south express, leaving Christchurch at 8.35 a.m., was delayed for approximately two hours, passengers being required to walk round the obstruction to a relief train sent from Oamaru. Delay was also caused by the necessity for transferring the lugsage from the guard’s van. the mails from the postal van, and other goods from a special roadside van to the relief train, «

The express from the south was also delayed last evening, arriving in Christchurch some 38 minutes late, and leaving at 8.15 instead of 7.37. The steamer express was held up till 9.15. The delay was due to stops at St. Andrews and Makikihi caused by signalling arrangements and the need to proceed slowly over a portion of the permanent way which had been damaged. The train carried a gang of workmen from Oamaru, who set to work to complete repairs to I a line. A special message to “The Press” from Waimate states; — Possible Cause of Accident

“Although the cause of the accident has not yet been ascertained, it is reported that an axle of a truck near the middle of the trail) broke, causing a waggon to jump and run for several yards outside the rails. Finally, the damaged truck became wedged on the rails, its coupling broke, and eight of the trucks following it ran off the track. More than a chain of line was torn up and badly twisted by the derailed waggons, and Only the lodging of one of the trucks sideways in the rails checked the movement of the carriages behind and averted injury to passengers. Coal from several of the damaged waggons was strewn in heaps about the line, and other goods which included frozen lambs from Pukeuri for the Port Dennison at Timaru, cement, and paper, had to be taken from trucks and moved further down the line on motor-lorries. It was learned in the evening that arrangements had been made for a relief train to pick up the goods from derailed waggons. The engine and waggons, which had broken loose from the rest of the train, carried on along the line for some distance, while the passenger carriages stood motionless behind the damaged waggons. Workmen from the south and irom Timaru and Makikihi were rushed to the scene, debris being removed from the track by a crane which had been in use further up the line. It .was impossible, however, for the lails to be replaced before the express from the north arrived.”