Runaway Tram Sensation At the Bay

Evening Star, Issue 26155, 17 July 1947, Page 6

Runaway Tram Sensation At the Bay

. Women passengers screamed, and a .housewife out on her shopping. rounds fainted when a double-bogey tram car came to rest on the footpath 20yds from the nearest tracks after a spectacular, uncontrolled journey down the hill from the .Anderson's Bay terminus ,at 9.6 thi$ v morning, Not one of the . , 10 passengers' on the tram, which was bound for the Exchange, was hurt/ The tram, which weighs about 20 tons, could not be controlled almost immediately after it left the terminus. - Gathering impetus os it moved,on to the Silverton street gradient, the vehicle bucked and swayed at high, speed. . . It. jumped the points halfway, down the hill, and after careering down the bitumen road for 100yd6j it finally tore through a grrifs plot on the corner to come to, a halt 6ft from a house and Ift from, a shop, amidst a conglomeration of wires, splintered wood* and broken glass. . Deep ruts in the bitumen road, a corner of the grass plot torn up in an incredible manner, a pole which held the overhead wires lying on the road snapped dean . at base, twisted trolly poles, and a , battered destination indicator, flung several feet from the tram itself, ali told the story of the ‘ runaway vehicle’s journey, r Before it finally embedded itself almost a foot into the 'footpath' th© tram leapt across the steel tracks on the corner. If the front bogey' had : not y crunched into the footpath the body of the tram would have - created havoc to the house on corner ,of Silverton , and Somerville streets. The tram came to' rest with its front poking over the edge of the path into the corner of the property, and its side only a foot from a shop. , Just how it negotiated the .drop , from the grass plot to tjie road without tipping on its side puzzled the tramway maintenance staff. LOCKED CONTROLS. “ The controls locked 1 just after the tram had left the terminus,” the motorman, Mr IR. Mac Murray, told the ‘ Star ’ shortly ■ after the accident. “ The hand brake was not sufficient to * hold her at speed.” . ~ Neither Mr Mac Murray nor the conductor, Mr D. Moore, was hurt. _ A nearby shopkeeper 6aid she did not know just what was. happening. ( “ I was so frightened I did not know where to go,” -she said. Another shopkeeper conld not believe her eyes as the tram hurtled past her shop. ~ Mrs V. L. Hunter, who was . walking up the hill to do her, shopping 'at the township, was given a bad fright when the tram sped past her. “ I realised the motorman was in trouble, for he was white in the face,” she said. • “ I have never seen a motor car travel as fast. The tram started to ■- rock and sway, and sparks and flashes . of flame *were leaping everywhere. As it jumped the rails at the turning point at the corner, pieces of the-tram were:, flying in all directions., .1 got' such a. . shock I cannot recall what happened af-. the last' moment.” " . “ ; :i Mrs Hunter added that the J motorman was -still at the controls ■’ as the tram came to a halt. j The engineer-manager of the city corporation transport department, Mr L. C. Greig, would not comment on the accident when approached by the - ‘ Star.’ ' v '