CROSSING TRAGEDY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 227, 24 August 1945, Page 6

CROSSING TRAGEDY

INQUEST ON FIVE VICTIMS. (Press Assn.) NAPIER, Aug. 24. The inquest into the deaths of the five men, Frank \Vano, Thomas Leonard Rowe, Raymond William Horne, Alexander Harvey Bryan, and Frederick Alexander Lambert, who were killed in a level crossing collision on August U with a railcar, was concluded today, when a verdict that death was due to shock and multiple injuries was returned. Dr J. ,J. Foley, medical superintendent of the Napier Hospital, stated that death in three cases was instantaneous, the other two men dying shortly after. Dr T. C. Higgins, who was near the scene of the crash, said lie heard the noise of the impact and saw debris Hying through the air and the railcar coming to a stop with debris piled in front. When ho first saw the railcar it was travelling at its usual speed. He heard the sound of the siren before the crash.

John Hayward McDonald, owner of the truck in which the men were travelling, stated that he did not knowhow the deceased men came to be on the truck, which was hired by the Public Works Department daily. They were not there from his instructions. His drivers had been told not to carry passengers. The deceased Lambert, said John C. Collins, a Public- Works Department engineer, was understood to be travelling to Napier on the lorry to get some medicine, as he had been on the sick list.

The driver of the railcar, Angus Mitchell Buttolph, of Wairoa, stated that he left Napier at 8.20 a.m. and reached the Westshore railway crossing at 5.27. His speed would bo about 40 miles an hour. Witness said lie saw the truck when 35 yards from the point of impact and the truck was about 25 to 30 yards from it. His speed was then '4O to 42 miles ail hour, the maximum sjiecd allowed being 50 miles an hour. ’They were allowed to go over crossings ■at that speed. Witness said lie sounded the horn about 100 yards from the crossing and when he saw the lorry he kept the horn going all the time. When he saw the lorry was not going to stop lie applied the brakes. Ho estimated the speed ol the lorry at 25 to 30 miles an hour. Witness thought the lorry driver must have seen the railcar.

As a result of the impact, witness added, the points opened, the leading bogies continuing on the main line while the trailing bogies went on the loop line. When the railcar stopped the leading bogies were off the line. The lorry caught lire and witness immediately instructed the guard to evacuate the passengers of the railcar through the rear door. He then used two fire extinguishers in an effort to put the fire out. Witness said he Jiael been driving railcars for about five years or more. The Coroner added a rider that the driver of the lorry attempted to cross the railway line in contravention of the regulations and no blame \was attachable to die railcar driver. He also made a recommendation that compulsory stop signs and automatic signals be placed at the crossing.