TRAIN WRECKERS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 80, 5 April 1926, Page 8

TRAIN WRECKERS

ANOTHER RAILWAY TRAP

TIMBERS ON THE LINE

THTRD OTITBAGE IN A MONTH.

.(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) . PALMERSTON N., This Day. \Tbe third attempt in less than a month to wreck a train, within tiree or four miles of Palmerston North, was made on Saturday evening, when the late mixed train from Napier ran into an obstruction on a level crossing about a mile on the Whakaronga side of the municipal gasworks. The engine struck seven cattle-stop beams which 1 had been torn up and laid crosswise over the rails exactly in the same way as in the attempt at derailment perpetrated on the Auckland line near Bunnythorpe early on Saturday morning and at the Terrace End and Kelvin Grove crossings on the evening of Bth March. In all cases the engine bogie wheels smashed and scattered the wood without leaving the track. ■,

In each the escape from a grave accident has been fortunate, for the crossings, are all so situated as to »be eufficiently distant from the station to ensure • the train travelling at a fair rate of speed.

When the engine of the Napier train hit the obstruction on Saturday, night it'lifted perceptibly as the bogie wheels crushed the beams, but it kept, to the track. The passengers were unaware that 'anything unusual had happened, and did not feel the shock. In connection with the Bunnythorpe incident on Saturday morning, it transpires that in addition to placing obstructions on the line and cutting the signal control wires, the train-wreckers severed a number of telephone wires running alongside the railroad. The police are continuing their investigations. -