OUT OF CONTROL

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 August 1924, Page 5

OUT OF CONTROL

TRAM ACCIDENT. FURTHER PARTICULARS. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT SYDNEY. August 21. Shortly before seven o’clock this morning a double. tmincar rail off the line at McMahon’s Point, dropped over an embankment, fell several feet, and crashed into an outhouse. Both parts of the ear .were smashed. Two men were killed and 27 persons were injured.

One of the couplea cars was electrically faulty, and the motorman was driving from the second car in accordance with the departmental regulations, the conductor being placed in the front car. When the car reached the: steep Blue Point Road it got out of control, dashed at a terrific speed down the hill about a quarter *of a mile, cut across a. loop, and passed over an embankment.

One of the killed is Harry Leeds, a police constable. The second man killed was named Lambert, a labourer. The car had about ninety passengers on board. The driver made frantic- effoits to obtain control of the? can right up to the time of the crash. When travelling at 50 miles an hour the tram jumped the rails a hundred yards from the loon, travelled on to the concrete roadway, tore across both sets of rails, and the leading car torpedoed over a two and a half feet retaining wall across a twelve-foot road and crashed into a brick outhouse, which was shattered. and the thick wall of the main dwelling was badly cracked. Constable Leeds, who was on the front of the first ear and was seriously injured, being saved from instant death only by the wall of the outhouse giving way so easily. Both victims had to be cut out of the wreckage with axes. AH the passengers who were not seriously injured were severely shaken, and were unable to proceed to their places of employment. Ambulances were quickly on the scene, and ten seriously injured people were sent to hospital. A heavy mist was one of the contributing causes to the disaster, the rails being greasy and preventing the wheels gripping. Of those injured two or three sustained broken limbs, the others suffering mostly from bruises and Severe shock. Numbers suffering from slighter shock quickly recovered. Amongst the latter some took the risk of jumping off the madly rushing tram when they saw that a. crash was inevitable. Prior to the accident there had been a stoppage on the line and the drivers were , making up time, passing some usual calling places without stopping. But for this there would have been considerably more passengers on board. Had the runaway tram left the rails ten yards before it did, it must have collided with a high tension powerhouse supplying the whole of the northern suburbs. A tremendous voltage would have been released which undoubtedly would have multiplied the death roil alarmingly.