SHEEP TRAIN DASHES INTO RAETIHI STATION AT 80 MILES AN HOUR

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7145, 17 February 1930, Page 6

SHEEP TRAIN DASHES INTO RAETIHI STATION AT 80 MILES AN HOUR

387 Sheep Killed

BRAKES PAIL TO HOLD TRUCKS ON INCLINE

DEPARTMENT TO MAKE GOOD LOSSES.

Special to Times. WANGANUI, Last Night,

The worst railway smash in the history of the Ohakune-Raetihi branch lino occurred at 2.55 a.m. on Saturday, when 15 trucks, containing about 900 sheep, and an empty guard’s van, broko away eight miles from Raetihi and running back, down the grades, raced into Raetihi at 80 miles an hour and piled in wreckage over the stanchion post or stop-block in tho station yard. It is estimated that 387 sheep wero killed, although a few of this number may have been thrown clear and strayed away. The train was the fifth of five specials carrying sheep from tho Raetihi ewo fair and left Raetihi at 11.15 p.m. on Friday with sheep consigned by the agents, as follow:—1123 to Mr. J. Henderson, of Horesham Downs, Hamilton, and consigned to tho Rukuhia flag station; 809 to Mr. W. O. Williams, of Kai Iwi, Wanganui. All went well until the train was ascending a steep grade a mile from 6hakuno junction, when slippery rails, caused by rain, gave trouble in haulage, during which a chain coupling broke. The brakes were applied to 15 trucks and the guard’s van, while the engine and the other 12 trucks which comprised the train went on to Ohakune. The guard, Mr. J. McAlphy, walked back down the lino to placo warning detonators, as required by the departmental regulations. The detonators had been placed and the guard was walking back up tho line when he met tho trucks and the empty van coming towards him at a pace too great for him to get aboard to gain control. The trucks continued on the down grade for three and a-half miles, passed over about half a mile of level line, then ascended a steep grade of one in 48, which contains a left and right hand curve, each of 27 chains and reached the down grade, two miles from Ruotihi station.

By the time Raetihi was reached, the trucks had gained a terrific speed and only the weight of the guard’s van (33 tons) was considered to have kept the runaway to the lines. With a resounding crash, the van hit the stop-block at the end of the lino in the station yards and plunged down over an embankment to a swamp. The van ploughed its way through tho swamp for half a chain and came to Test with its wheels buried but without capsizing. Eleven trucks piled up behind the van, being smashed to matchwood and the following two trucks wero blocked by the heap of debris and derailed, being damaged bu u not beyond Tepair. Tho remaining two trucks at the back of the rake remained on the rails and were not damaged. To-day the work of clearing up tho litter is in progress. Instructions have been given by tho Department for the burial of the sheep at Is 6d a head. The Department, it is reported, has agreed to make good the loss, but just what amount is involved it is impossible to say yet. The latest estimate is that 387 sheep were actually killed, but ft is probable that another 100 may die as a result of injuries.