RAILWAY CROSSING SMASH

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 November 1939, Page 2

RAILWAY CROSSING SMASH

LORRY-DRIVER KILLED

[PER press association.} HAMILTON, November 21. Terrible injuries, from which he died about, two hours after admission to the hospital, were received by the driver of a cream-lorry, when the vehicle was involved in a collision with a goods train on the Pinko crossing, near Morrinsville, this morning. The lorry was lifted bodily on to the front of the engine, and was carried for 50 yards before being dashed to pieces on the side of the track. The driver was thrown out of the cab. The victim was Samuel Thompson, 51, married, of Waiho'u, employed as a lorry-driver by F. J. Smethurst. contractor, of Waiho'u. When the accident occurred, Thompson was travelling to the dairy factory at Morrinsville with a load of cream. A passenger train had just passed over the crossing ,and was being followed by*a cattle train, when the lorry approached the line. The engine caught the vehicle on its side, and carried it over the cattle-stop, and in the process the driver was thrown out of the cab.

According to the police, there were hardly two pieces of wood from the damaged lorry measuring more than two feet in length, while the chassis was a tangled heap.