STRUCK BY ENGINE

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 222, 15 August 1930, Page 7

STRUCK BY ENGINE

LEVEL CROSSING ACCIDENT. CAR BADLY SMASHED. LADY DRIVER INJURED. Caught broadside on at the Post Office railway level crossing in the Square this morning by the engine of a heavy goods train, a six cylinder sedan car was carried over forty yards before it was thrown off the lines badly wrecked. The driver, Miss Mavis Evans, of 118 Cuba Street, had a remarkable escape from serious injury, but suffered somewhat from shock and emerged from her ordeal badly bruised. She also had several teeth knocked out. The accident occurred shortly before nine o’clock and the train, which was proceeding from the direction of Terrace End to the Palmerston North station, was fortunately travelling fairly slowly, or a fatality would probably have occurred. Miss Evans was driving towards Church Street and had passed the Post Office when she apparently observed the oncoming train almost at the crossing. Judging from the skidmarks, she applied the brakes and eyewitnesses of the collision state that the car stopped momentarily with its wheels over the first set of rails. It then moved forward for some unexpected reason and was struck by the engine. The impact was a severe one and the car was caught fairly behind the bonnet on the left hand side. The collision occurred on the side of the road nearer the Post Office and the car was half dragged and half carried across the whole remaining width of the crossing to the beginning of the garden enclosure, where a fence was swept aside and a post broken. Signal wires were smashed fiat and the car was finally cast aside over twenty yards down the line from the edge of the roadway, coming to a stop in a badly battered condition at the beginning of the bend in the railway line, and facing towards the station. When the car was thrown to the right of the line the driver managed to extricate herself in a dazed condition and assistance was almost immediately at hand. After receiving attention she was removed to her home, fortunately not badly hurt, after a terrifying experience. Extensive damage was done to the car, a new one, and the left side of the body was severely battered, the door and bonnet being crushed in. The footboard was torn away and the left front wheel smashed to fragments. Shattered glass was strewn about the scene of the collision.

There was soon a large crowd at the scene of the accident. The smashed car was removed with some trouble by a repair lorry.