Motorist did not hear train

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34046, 9 January 1976, Page 1

Motorist did not hear train

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Jan. 8. A man was killed when his car was struck by a train at the Patumahoe levelcrossing, near Pukekohe, at 12.45 p.m., today. He was ROY PATRICK GALLAGHER, aged 49, married, with nine children, of Patumahoe. who was known to suffer from periods of deafness. Mr J. T. Namu, a railway worker, was standing about five yards from the crossing, as one of a work party cutting rails by the side of the line, when the accident occurred.

“The flashing light and bell were going at the crossing, and two cars had already stopped,” Mr Namu said.

“Then the car appeared from a side street and drove towards the crossing,” he said. “It slowed down, and I thought he was going to stop. But then he began to drive slowly across the tracks. ‘1 thought, ‘He is not going to make it’ Then I started to yell at him; and a man in one of the other cars was screaming at him to stop. “But he didn’t hear. Then the train hit . . . there was a tremendous noise . . . the car was dragged SO yards and

then slung off the front of the train. A huge cloud of dust rose up.” The Impact of the crash sheared off one of the brake cables on the front of the engine, and it stopped 1054 ft past the crossing.

“I didn’t see him,” said the engine driver afterwards. “1 was looking out from the left of the engine and the car was coming from my right. “I felt a sharp Jolt, and there was a loud bang,” tlie engine driver said. “Then there were pieces of something flying through the air.”

The fireman in the cab was thrown to the floor by the force of the Impact, and suffered minor injuries.