MOTOR-TRUCK CRASHES INTO TRAIN

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 16, 13 October 1927, Page 10

MOTOR-TRUCK CRASHES INTO TRAIN

DRIVER’S MIRACULOUS ESCAPE FROM DEATH WRECKAGE CARRIED ON ' FRONT OF ENGINE Dominion Special Service. Chiistchurcb, October I*2. Leaping from a motor-truck when it collided with the Parnassus express travelling at an estimated speed of forty miles an hour this morning, Mr. P. E. Burgess, a coal merchant, had a miraculous escape from death or serious injury. With blood streaming from a wound over his left eye, he saw liis truck laden high with coal carried on the cow catcher of the fast-moving engine for a distance of over' a hundred yards, and then hurled on to the platform of the Papanui Railway Station a heap of tangled scrapiron. Mr. Burgess was travelling towards .the city when the crash occurred. Someone in a cart in front of him turned and put up his hand as' an indication that the train was approaching. Just as he neared the line Mr. Burgess saw him, but did not understnd the meaning of the signal. He heard no whistle and saw no train until a moment later the engine thundered over the crossing. Then he leapt from the cabin of the truck just as the forepart of the engine struck the radiator and carried the heavy truck along the track. The impact hurled Mr. Burgess with considerable force for several cards. He was dazed, and received a severe gash on the forehead, but was otherwise unhurt. He picked himself up a moment or two after the crash and saw the train was still moving far down the track, with the radiator, steering column, and other parts of the truck clinging to the front of the engine over two hundred yards from _ the. scene of the crash. The train, which in the ordinary course of events does not stop at Papanui, came to a standstill, and a hundred yards further back the remains of the truck, stripped of all woodwork, and with nothing intact but the battered chassis, lay on the platform. Coal was strewn far across the road as the truck was carried along, and railway men on the platform at the time of the crash narrowly escaped injury also.