Loco 'had red light'

Press, 13 August 1980, Page 10

Loco ' had red light'

PA Wellington The head signalman in a Wellington railway station signal box yelled out moments before a shunting locomotive crashed into a Porirua train, the signalman, Kevin Addley, has told the Wellington District Court.

The Court was hearing depositions into charges arising from the train crash on March 24 in which two men were killed and 56 people injured. Mr Addley said he had shouted moments before the impact, "He’s not going to stop at 99 signal.” The shunter driver, Kevin Charles Smith, aged 25, of Ngaio, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of manslaughter by driving through a stop signal thereby killing Charles Louis Henris Oos-

thoudevree and Ernest Goodwin - ... Mr Addley said he hac given the shunting locomotiv< a “low speed signal” at “10< signal.” At the next signal the 99 signal, he had giver the red light or stop signal His signal-box panel ha< indicated that the 99 signa should have been showing t red light when the shuntinj locomotive had gone throug:

it. In cross-examining, witness said there had been no signa malfunctions since he had been in his job (10 years). "But any equipment made by man has that doubt, 1 suppose,” he said. The morning of the crash had been a normal morning except for the train from Porirua (1421) having been 15 minutes late. The tram from Wairarapa (805) had ar-

rived ahead of it and had tone to platform nine about ’.40 a.m. A shunting locomotive had gone to it to take .he carriage away for service. The Porirua train had been :oming in and witness had old his assistant signalman o give it a go-ahead signal. Witness had given the 104 tnd 99 signals to the shuntng locomotive for the A’airarapa unit. The Porirua train had been irriving and he had been vatching platform nine. He iad seen the shunting loconotive going faster than it would have been if it had been going to stop at signal

99. He yelled to the other people in the signal box (six), “He’s not going to stop at 99 signal. Looks like we’re going to have a run through ... (a run through a set of signal points). Witness said there was nothing that could have been done to stop the collision. His assistant signalman, Ronald Fanning, told the Court he had controlled the signals for the Porirua train. The other five men in the signal box gave similar accounts of what they had seen and heard of the crash from the box. Earlier, the assistant shunter in the shunting locomotive, Atonio Pesi, told the Court he had seen no signal to the locomotive to proceed. He disagreed with the evidence on Friday of a shunting-locomotive assistant, Mingawaka Potae, that Mr Potae had talked with him (Mr Pesi) and the senior shunter after the crash and that they had told Mr Potae that they had seen a go-ahead signalThe senior shunter of the shunting locomotive, Alexander George, also denied this on Friday. The hearing is before Judge P. J. Bate.