RAILWAY WAGONS DERAILED

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

RAILWAY WAGONS DERAILED

SMASH NEAR AUCKLAND Dominion Special Service. Auckland, October 12. Wrecked about daybreak this morning, three railway goods wagons were piled up on tlie side of the main line near the point where the Favona Road ,over-bridge spans several tracks of rails, a short distance south of Otahuhu station. They had been swung off to the left as the Frankton-Auck-land goods train was slowing down in crossing the station yard points. As it approached Otahubu two of them, fully loaded with new season’s cheese, were capsized, the third retaining a partially upright position, although off the rails. From the place where the hurtling wagons struck the sleepers with a "heavy side-swinging motion, the track was much damaged, and at least forty sleepers were screwed out of straight by the force of tlie derailment, bolts being broken and dislodged as the wrecked stocks settled into a heap, with the guards’ van still foul of the main line. Investigations showed that one of the wagons had. been off the rails for a 'distance of fully six miles, from Manu rewa to the scene of the crash, but the trouble did not develop until, a certain set of points was met with. A clearly marked line along the sleepers showed where the wheels had been trailing as the train ,tnade the journev from Mauurewa onwards. At the final craslij at 4.18 a.m., the signal system was thrown out of order, and the iron work bent and broken. Arrangements were made to let trains through by a flag signal system, just where the electric gear had been put out of order, and, with the exception of a delay of about an hour and a half to a special train to the Waikato, the train-running was but slightly affected. As the derailed wagons were thrown over in their wrecked condition, their walls were strained and broken, and cheese crates were crushed. The produce was from the Cambridge Dairy Company’s factory, and was consigned to a freezing works at Auckland.