BRAKE BREAKS TRAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 59, 7 September 1937, Page 12

BRAKE BREAKS TRAIN

IRRESPONSIBLE ACTION '

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

INVERCARGILL, September 6.

A special express train from Christchurch, by which visitors to the second Rugby football Test match returned to Invercargill last night, broke in two, leaving six carriages attached to the engine and twelve uncoupled, as it was coming alongside the platform of the railway station at 10.56 a.m.

The train was an unusually long and heavy one, consisting of eighteen carriages, all filled with passengers. While the train was coming alongside the platform* the emergency lever in the second carriage from the engine was ;pulled, and the brakes were instantaneously applied.

The shock was so severe that the set of couplings broke, and the train parted six cars from the engine.. The platforms were crowded, with,passengers preparing to leave the train, and when the break occurred two men were thrown to the track from the platform of the sixth carriage, but neither was hurt. An inspection of the train after the accident showed that considerable damage had been done. The hook that linked the sixth and seventh cars had been snapped in half, and all the iron stanchions on the sixth carriage had been torn away, not one being left standing. The two iron gates at at the sides of the platform had been torn from their hinges, and the iron framework on the seventh carriage platform was severely wrenched. The rdiock caused several windows to break, and a porcelain wash basin in one carnage was shattered. Railway officials stated that the lever must have been pulled by some iresponsible person in the carriage. \Wfc^s no apparent reason for the <\, be applied.