RAILWAY FATALITY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 94, 18 October 1934, Page 14

RAILWAY FATALITY

NEWMARKET SMASH

MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE

(By Telegrar>b—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, This Day.

As a sequel to the- Newmarket railway smash on the night of October 2, when a guard, Alan Dunsmuir, was decapitated, a charge of manslaughter was preferred in the Police Court today against Ernest Harold Strong, signalman. Mr. Wyvern Wilson was on the Bench, and Mr. E. H. Northcroft represented the accused.

Alfred Diggle, clerk in charge of the station on the night in question, gave evidence- that the accused's duty-in the signal box was to set the roads for trains by working levers and signals. He described how a passenger train from Helcnsville crashed into stock wagons and a guard's van. Whereas the passenger train had been shunted on the up main line, where thcro wore twenty-one trucks, it should have been put on the down main line. Witness heard a crash, and on rushing out of the office saw that the passenger train had crashed into the stock wagons, and the guard's van was lying on top of the first stock wagon. The guard was standing erect on the end of his van, having been decapitated.

The head shunter at Newmarket. Edward Cubitt, gave evidence that on going to tho scene of tho collision he saw the accused, who said ho had made a mistake and asked where the guard was. Witness was unable to remember what the accused actually said, as he was so cut up.

The fireman of the passenger train, Claude Wilson, said that he received from Dunsmuir a white light signal to back, and ho told the driver, who acknowledged by a whistle blast before backing tho train.

Cross-examined, he said that the guard did not show the red danger light.