SCENE OF ACCIDENT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21606, 8 January 1945, Page 2

SCENE OF ACCIDENT

EMBANKMENT SUBSIDES TWO CARS DOWN BANK (P.A.) WANGANUI, Jan. 8. Cars with steel frames and anticollision ends saved the passengers on the first express from Wellington to Auckland from serious injury when the train was derailed by a subsidence at 1.45 o'clock on Saturday , morning three and a-hnlf miles north of Raurimu. Six cars were derailed, two sliding 14ft. down an embankment and coming to rest at an angle of 45 degrees. Another was suspended over a deep hole in the railway track, being held in position bv one set of its own bogies and the unbroken couplings of the next car. which was not derailed. The subsidence occurred on a slight up-grade as the train was passing over an embarkment which carries the track across a short gully between two cuttings. The top of the embankment gave way when the culvert was unable to carry an abnormal, volume or Hood water. The locomotive, one of the heavy K.A. class, got across, but Hie leading" six cars left t’ne rails. The tender and the leading wheels of the engine were also derailed. Only two people were injured. Onlv two ucoplc. Mrs. F. B. Smith, Wellington, and Mr. O. Nolan, Ikamatua. were injured. Both the injured, after treatment at the hospital, were able to resume their journey by train. In the meantime the Mam Trunk line is closed,to all through traffic, the express trains being diverted via the Stratford-Okahukura route. Repair work has continued day and night since the accident and the engineers hope to have the line open again this morning. ■