LIMITED USES NEW DEVIATION

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 255, 24 July 1936, Page 12

LIMITED USES NEW DEVIATION

Mishap Blocks Old Line

MEAT VAN DERAILED AT JOHNSONVILLE

Prevented by the derailment of a van in the Johnsonville railway yard from using the usual route, the Limited express left Wellington last night via the Tawa Flat deviation. Night goods trains have used the new line for many months, and the rail-cars have occasionally run over it, but the passengers in last night’s express were the first travellers by a regular train to be taken over the new route. The train left Wellington nearly two hours late, bur it is expected to make some of the lost time before it arrives at Auckland. Other traffic was disorganised but little. The accident which caused the delay happened during shunting on a track parallel and adjacent to the main line. An empty double-bogy meat-van swung across the tracks, projecting over the main line rails sufficiently to prevent their use. The other end of the van collided with a low grassy bank and the fence which separates the railway yard from the main street of Johnsonville, the mishap occurring at the point where the road and the railway are very close together and almost on the same level. The fence was smashed, but the van and the track were damaged comparatively little. Happening about 7.50 p.m., the accident held up two trains which were due to pass Johnsonville a little later, the Palmerston North-Wellington passenger train and the train which leaves Wellington at 6.19 p.m. for Paekakariki. The passengers of the train from Palmerston were transhipped at Johnsonville to another train and arrived at Wellington about an hour late. The north-bound passengers were similarly transhipped. Working in the rain, a gang had the line clear by 9 o’clock. When it was seen that some time would elapse before the van could be got out of the way, preparations were made to send the Limited over the deviation. Because no passenger trains had used the line before and there are some temporary structures, including a stone-crusher, alongside it, the engineers had to, satisfy themselves that the carriages of . the Limited could pass along without trouble. Great care had to be taken because the carriages are larger than the trucks and other vehicles which have been taken over the line. The Limited finally left for Auckland at 9.8 p.m.