ATTEMPTED RAIL SABOTAGE IN QUEENSLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 March 1948, Page 5

ATTEMPTED RAIL SABOTAGE IN QUEENSLAND

BRISBANE, March 16.

In the swiftest and most successful police action since strike picketing began at the Shell Company depots in Brisbane, the police today arrested the State secretary of the Waterside Workers’ Federation (E. C. Englart) and broke up a demonstration of about 60 men and women. . Englart later appeared in the Police Court on traffic charges and was remanded. Bail was allowed.

The police surrounded the demonstrators and read portions of the An-ti-picketing Act. The pickets were then dispersed and shepherded out of the area.

The final refusal of the New South Wales Road Transport Department to issue permits for the transport by road to Queensland of urgently needed goods will be investigated by the New South Wales Premier (Mr J. McGirr). An attempt to wreck coal trains running between Ipswich and Brisbane was foiled by the watchfulness of a railway linesman. Railway officials admitted that a linesman who was patrolling the track 30 miles from Brisbane found that 14 dog spikes had been pulled up from one length of line and that a fishplate coupling had been partly removed. Detectives believe that the damage was done by an experienced railwayman, as dog spikes are difficult to remove.

At least one coal train passed oyer the damaged section without being derailed.

An expert who examined the line said that a second train would probably have caused the lines to spread, making a derailment inevitable. A fast passenger train would have been wrecked immediately.