ANOTHER FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume L, Issue 5560, 17 December 1878, Page 3

ANOTHER FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

The Invercargill correspondent of the Otago Daily Timet on Saturday telegraphed the following account of a serious accident on the Invercargill lino.*—At a quarter to 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon Proudfoofc and Co.’s ballast engine, with ten loaded trucks,' was running at toe rate of 15 miles an hour between Pokcrau and Oteri Stations, 52 miles from Invercargill, when four cows were observed by the engine-driver to be on the line. One of them made an attempt to cross the line, but ludtod, then faced the engine and ran towards it. The engine-driver at once shut off steam, hut the brute was caught by the cow-catcher, and dragged a distance of two chains, when it got wedged between the sleepers and the bottom of the cow-catcher, and lifted the engine off the rails. The engine then went about SO feet and capsized over s 6 feet bank into swampy ground. Three of the trucks followed, piling themselves over each other in one heap of debris. Mr Proudfoot’s carpenter, a young man named John Mainland, belonging to Clinton, who was returning from his work at Gore, was seated on the ballast in the first truck. When the wreck was examined ho was found with his body under the first truck, which was turned upside down, and his legs protruding. The poor fellow must hare been instantaneously killed. John Hough, the engine-driver, was carried down with the engine. How he escaped he cannot tell. His face was severely scalded by steam, and he received a nasty shaking, but no bones were broken. Peter Oliver Webb, the stoker, had a most miraculous escape. When the engine went over the embankment he was thrown off backwards, and then dragged and buried amongst the ballast. After becoming conscious, he discovered himself doubled up with his head between his legs. By a attic effort he found that the gravel gave way from his feet, when he got some fresh air and managed' to crawl out from between the first truck and the cow-cateher. Some of the linesmen at once commenced to operate on. the pile of debris with the object of getting out the dead body. These men were shortly after assisted by a gang of men brought by train from Gore. Nearly two chains of too plates were displaced and twisted in all kinds of forms. The passengers by the through train from Dunedin were transferred to a carriage and brought ou by the Gore engine, and reached Invercargill two hours late. The general [opinion is that such accidents can never be rendered impossible until the line is fenced.