Train hits van in rail ferry

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 40

Train hits van in rail ferry

PA Nelson Cook Strait ferry passengers said yesterday that they had had to jump’ for their lives moments before a goods train crashed into their van in the Aranui. More than $20,000 worth of van, racing motorcycles, and tools were crushed to “4ftlong junk,” said the owner of one machine, a Nelson motor-cycle retailer, Mr Colin Bower, yesterday. Chris Marer and Dave Lewis, both of Nelson, were returning after finishing ninth over all (third in their class) in the Castrol six-hour production race at Mansfeild, near Palmerston North, at the week-end. They and the three other members of the racing team were in the van and just managed to leap clear before the train hit the van and crushed it against a luggage lorry. The 10 a.m. ferry sailing from Wellington was held up 30 minutes while the remains of the van were removed. A mechanic, Mr Tim Tibbs, who was the last one out of the van, said, “I was holding the door handle as the train hit — and stepped aside holding the door. There was nothing to close it on. “If I had stopped first to put on my shoes I would have been inside the van when the train hit,” he said.