TRAM COLLISION IN CHRISTCHURCH

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 13

TRAM COLLISION IN CHRISTCHURCH

Considerable Damage To

Vehicles

BOTH CARRYING SAFETY FIRST SLOGANS

By Telegraph—Press Associativa.

CHRISTCHURCH. December I).

While the city council’s traffic department's safety week procession was in progress this afternoon a tram with a trailer attached crashed into the back of a trailer attached to another tram which bad stopped in Ferry load near Monica Park. Both trams were carrying safety first slogans on banners. Fortunately there were not many passengers on either tram and. though considerable damage was done Io I lie vehicles, only one person was injured. This was the motornian ot the second tram, and his injuries were not serious. /rhe 2.10 p.m. tram for Sumner stopped at the regular stopping-place to set: down a woman passenger. She was in the act of alighting when the 2.14 p.m. tram for Woolston crashed into the rear of the trailer which was attached to the Sumner tram. The woman escaped injury. The conductor, who was standing on Hie platform of the trailer of the Sumner car, saw the other car coining and, realizing that an accident was inevitable, jumped off just in time to avoid serious injury. because the empty trailer was telescoped. The motormau of the Woolston tram received painful facial injuries and suffered severely from shock.

The force of the impact was so great that tlie stationary Sumner-bound car and trailer were pushed a chain beyond the stopping place. Passengers in the Sumner tram received a severe shaking but there was no panic.

AH four vehicles were badly damaged, particularly the trailer on the Sumner car. The whole of the rear of this vehicle was stove in and the road was littered with broken glass anil splintered timber. (rhe tramway authorities had breakdown equipment, on the scene almost immediately and in less than an hour all the wreckage was cleared away. The traffic was not: interfered with because the slop was on a loop. The injured motorman wits taken to the Christchurch Hospital by a passing motorist and early in the evening lie was discharged as an outpatient.