EXPRESS IN SLIP

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 194, 18 July 1939, Page 6

EXPRESS IN SLIP

TRAIN’S NARROW ESCAPE. ACCIDENT IN GORGE. Sliding down the hillside from its starting point 50it. above the railway line, the slip which developed in the Manawatn Gorge at about 12.30 p.m. yesterday, just as ■ the express proceeding from Napier to Palmerston North was passing underneath, caused considerable dislocation of traffic. It struck and practically buried the 40ton tender of the powerful A.B. locomotive. bringing the train, which was travelling comparatively slowly, to an abrupt standstill. No material damage was done beyond the breaking of a window of the locomotive, but some of the passengers received a fright. There was a veritable deluge of rain in the Gorge on Sunday night, and the train was proceeding cautiously on account of the subsequent sodden conditions, though the line is under constant surveillance in such weather. DRIVER’S PRESENCE OF MIND. Three quarters ot a mile from the station by ihe bridge at the Woodvilie end of the Gorge, the express was rounding a shaip bend when the driver, Mr B. Johnson, of Palmerston North, noticed debris “seeping” on the side of the hill immeuiately ahead, indicating that a slip was imminent, or actually on the way down. Acting promptly, he applied ".lie brakes, and this probably saved a serious accident. Just as the engine was passing the slip cp. me down. consisting of rublne and big stones, burying all of one side of the tender right to the top, but the tender, across which big stores bounced, held the lino, beyond which there was a small rock escarpment on the brink of the precipitous side of the Manawatn River. A few stones rolled into the eng’ne cab, and a small portion of the slip struck the end of the nearest carriage, lmt no one was injured. CLEtRING OF LINE. The point of the accident is about live miles irom Ashiiurst, between two uridges, anti about a quarter ot a mile trom the end of the loop line recently constructed. Fortunately, a railway gang was working on a bridge less than 100 yards ahead, and they ini mediately proceeded to the scene of the blockage to commence the removal of the slip, completing their work by about midnight. Operations were hampered by the lact that the engine bender was partly under the rubble. Meanwhile the carriages of the express were taken back to Woodville and the passengers transferred to buses which had brought the passengers from the express which was proceeding to Napier, and which was being held at Ashiiurst. The latter train was boarded by the south-bound passengers, and it left at 2.44 p.m. for Palmerston North. The Napier-Wellington express had a close call, as it is considered that had a loose rock slip of such dimensions (and which left a gaping hole in the hillside) struck any of the carriages, it would either have burst through, or swept them off the line into the flooded Manawatn River, practically a sheer drop of 50ft. below. However, the fender, which was the heaviest part of the train, bore the impact. Fifteen yards hack from this point only two or three feet of ground on an unprotected edge flanked the drop into the Manawatn River. Consequently, serious possibilities were averted by an alert driver and the matter of a. second or two. The locomotive had been extricated this morning and the normal running schedules resumed on the line. Interviewed by a reporter, one of the passengers stated that the slip caught the engine ns it swung round a bend, and a few minutes later, after the train had been brought to a standstill, another fall of earth and stones came down, landing between the tender of the engine and the first carriage. This gave passengers in the first carriage a shock, and it was lucky that none of Hie stones crashed through the glass windows.