N.I. RAILWAY MISHAP

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 March 1929, Page 11

N.I. RAILWAY MISHAP

THREE PASSENGERS INJURED

(Per Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, March 22

As the Palmerston North-Welling-ton mail train was approa-ching Pukeura Bay, about 6.10 p.m. to-day, the tyre of a wheel of one of the carriages broke, and four of the carriages and the guard’s van left the rails.

Two ladies and a man, all bound from Levin to Paremata, were severely cut and bruised, but all the other passengers escaped with nothing worse than minor bruises and a shaking. Those injured were: — Mrs S. Wallace, Miss Margaret Wallace, Mr P. S. Wallace. The part of the train remaining on the rails continued, a postal van being used to carry the injured, and it arrived at Plimmerton, the next stop, past Pukeura Bay, at 8.50. The Limited express, bound from Wellington to Auckland, was delayed at Thorndon, but the line was clear at 9. p.m., and it then proceeded.

The guard states that the passenger car with the damaged wheel was the second one in front of the guard’s van, and it and the cars on either side of the van were pulled off. The derailed section ran 40 feet down a slope to the beach, the guard’s van becoming detached and turning upside down.

The train came to a standstill with some of the derailed carriages on their sides, and the last one resting on the beach below. There was a surprising absence of panic, and only a few doors had to be forced to release the passengers “The passengers took the mishap in a merry spirit. They lit bonfires on the beach, and turned the whole affair to a jolly picnic,” said the guard. The officials state that the train was running to time, and at the usual speed The train was carrying thirty passengers. An official explained that such an accident as a rim leaving a wheel was rare.