“FLYING GANG’S” FAST JOURNEY

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 155, 28 March 1938, Page 11

“FLYING GANG’S” FAST JOURNEY

1 Breakdown Outfit Rushed From .Wellington TRAINS HELD UP TO KEEP LINE CLEAR A fast non-stop journey from Wel- ; lington brought the main breakdown gang to tlie scene of the accident, at ! Ratana in about five and a half hours. [ compared with the usual six for the express trip. This is rapid travel for ! a heavy unit, comprising a 40-ton steam crane and an emergency van loaded with weighty lifting-jacks solid baulks of timber and similar gear. Moreover, the men of the “flying gang” received the call in the small hours of the morning ; their preparations were made in darkness, and they set out at an hour when traffic on the line was working up to one of the busiest periods of the week-end. Six trains, including the Limited Express from Auckland, hail to wait to let them go by. To many people along the line, their passing gave the first hint of the tragedy that had taken place.. Immediately news of the disaster came across tlie wires, a breakdown gang was rushed to the spot from Wanganui to set about the preliminary work of shifting the debris preparatory to clearing the line. This gang arrived at Ratana at 5.30 o’clock in the morning. Meantime, 130 miles away, in Wellington, the crew of the “flying gang” were hastily summoned from their beds in the darkness and the emergency outfit kept, standing constantly ready for such a call was coupled behind an express engine. The outfit comprised a van equipped with all the necessary gear for'' lifting and shifting objects weighing many tons and for repairing and reconditioning a strained and damaged track. To this was added one of the heaviest pieces of rolling stock on the line—a 40-ton crane truck. At a few minutes past five, just when the Wanganui gang was arriving at the wrecked train, tlie heavy-duty unit set out from Wellington. The outfit was not accompanied by a great staff of men, the railway system being to draw on the locality of the accident as far as possible for the less skilled labour. So the great majority of the workers were recruited from Wanganui. Only a handful of technicians and experts made that rush trip with the gear from Wellington. They arrived slightly after 16.30 a.m. The early hours of Saturday morning are usually busy ones for passenger traffic and there were five passenger trains and one goods train on the line between Wellington and Palmerston North, in the district immediately administered from tlie control rooms at the Wellington Railway Station. Those six trains had to stand aside, as did others further up the line. Telephone bells were ringing all the way up the line as it was hurriedly cleared to let the breakdown gang go through. There was no single hold-up. Even the Limited Express had to wait until the line was free again.

On the graphs which record the movements of all trains, checked at the Wellington control room, the progress of the emergency train is Indicated by a single straight-ruled line, its steepness showing how favourably its speed contrasted with those of the other trains moving that morning, the slow trains slanting gradually across the squared paper and even the Limited showing a more gradual angle than that of the breakdown gang and being broken by the horizontal steps indicating stops.

Up the line, the sight of the big engine roaring by, with the great crane rumbling behind it, was for many people the first indication that anything was wrong. “'When we saw it passing through so obviously in a hurry and at such an early hour, we realised there must have been, a bad smash up the line,” said a Paekakariki man yesterday. “It was not long before the bad ne.ws was confirmed.”