TRAIN DISASTER

Evening Star, Issue 23718, 28 October 1940, Page 4

TRAIN DISASTER

Limited Derailed Near Mercer DRIVER AND FIREMAN KILLED Ten Passengers Injured [Per United Pkess Association.] AUCKLAND, October 28. The Limited express from Wellington met with disaster 400yds on the southern side of the Mercer railway station at 8.45 this morning. The engine driver, Dir J. M Cubbin, of I*rauktou, and the fireman, Mr C. J. Ritchie, of Hamilton, were killed and 10 passengers injured. The engine apparently left the rails and the first five carriages ran past it and were extensively damaged. One side of the first car was ripped right out and half the side of the second car was ripped off for about 10ft. Tho third car was torn away and tho fourth car partially wrecked. All these cars contained passengers. After leaving the rails the engine toppled flat on one side towards the bank, part of it protruding over the rails and causing tho damage to the carriages as they went past, slowing up.

Tlic bodies of the driver and fireman were extricated with ropes. They were dead when removed. A well-filled race train from Auckland for the Cambridge meeting arrived at Mercer at 9.20 but the lino was so completely blocked that the tram could not proceed further. Rain began to fall, hindering the operations. SPEEDY HOSPITAL ATTENTION. Captain Salmond, N.Z.M.C., who was a passenger on the Limited, rendered first aid and the injured passengers were taken to a goods shed in the railway yards. Doctors Douglas and Rogg, of Pukekohe, were summoned by the Mercer police and were quickly on the scene. An ambulance •was sent from Pukekobc and five ambulances from the St. John station, Auckland. . , , . The superintendent of the Auckland Hospital despatched four doctors to Mercer immediately, and one of the five ambulances sent carried lull equipment. At 10.50 eight of the injured passengers had arrived at the Auckland Hospital where beds were in readiness and eight surgeons standing ready. The first of the injured was being X-rayed by 11 a.in., and others wercTbeing operated upon. THE INJURED. The injured were P. D. Lark, Auckland, two broken logs. Dudley P. Shepherd, 208 College street, Palmerston North, broken leg. Henry John Ferguson Auckland, broken leg. . ~ , Violet Isabel Utting, Auckland, bruises and cuts (nofc serious), Frank Saunderson, 41 River Road, Hamilton (not serious) —taken to Hamilton in the ambulance. Robert Aitchison, Auckland (not

serious), Roy Hookam, Auckland (not serious), Patrick Hughes, Auckland (not serious), R. Reid, Auckland (not serious), Mary J. Webb, Hamilton (not serious) —taken to Hamilton in the ambulance. Both the dead men were married, with families. PLUCKY MOTHER. The correct time of the accident was 8.14. A relief train arrived at Auckland about 1 o’clock with the passengers, who told of the sudden initial jolt, the smashing and of glass as the first five carriages smashed past the wrecked engine. The passengers were thrown across the aisles, and many of those not on the injured list sustained minor abrasions. Warm tributes were paid Captain Salmond, Army Medical Corps, in the second carriage from the engine. It is stated that he was leaving the washing compartment when it was smashed to splinters, but he unconcernedly set about attending the injured. The story is told of a mother who instictively gathered her three children to her and fell on top of them. on the floor, all escaping unharmed, “She was very plucky about it and quite cheerful, said Air Force passengers. Two members of an Auckland cycling team returning from Wellington—A. Stonex and S. Downie —were shaving when the washing compartment was wrecked. They walked out on to the bank half shaved. Stonex’s foot was slightly cut by the falling fragments of the basin.

[Mercer, on the Waikato River, is 43 miles soutli from Auckland and about 40’ miles north from Hamilton.]