The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1938. The Ratana Derailment.

Northern Advocate, 22 July 1938, Page 4

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1938. The Ratana Derailment.

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

SERIOUS accidents to passenger trains in the Now Zealand railway service are extremely rare, and it is probable that the service boasts as high a record of safety as could be presented by any railway system in the world. Certainly the Ratana derailment on March 26 last terminated a long period of immunity in which no passenger had been killed. This was all the more reason why an accident which bad such tragic consequences, seven people losing their lives, should be thoroughly investigated, and the Government is to be complimented on the steps it took immediately to sift every shred of evidence to ascertain the true reason why the train left the rails. A commission was appointed, and its conclusion can he summed up in two words: Excessive speed. The train, in the view of the board of inquiry, entered the fatal curve at a speed of 50 m.p.h.—a very high speed on a narrow gauge track. As the speed limit over that portion of the line is 65 m.p.h., with a reduction for curves, such a conclusion implies that responsibility for the accident, and for the fate of the seven who perished, rests with the engine-driver, aiid with the enginedriver alone. The commission softens the blow considerably by expressing the opinion that the driver committed an honest error of judgment. Engines in New Zealand are not equipped with speedometers, and the judgment of speed is left to the drivers, whose training usually enables them to estimate it with reasonable accuracy. Certain external circumstances, however, including a slight fog, impaired Driver PercivaUs judgment, of both speed and distance, and thus, after many years of faithful service, he is declared by the Commission of Inquiry to have capsized his train and tarnished a splendid record. The Commission of Inquiry, in its-wisdom, takes a lenient view of Driver PercivaUs lapse, and it is to be presumed that no severe disciplinary action against him will follow. One gratifying feature of. the accident is that there was no question of any fault in the tracks or in the rolling stock of which this particular train was composed. Nor was there any question of a failure of the signalling system, on which the safe operation of a railway system must depend. The accident was caused, as so many others have been, primarily by the human factor, that incalculable and unpredictable element against whose rare failures there is absolutely no protection. It is inevitable, however, that the accident must raise the general question of the suitability of the New Zealand narrow gauge and the standard of safety of the alignment of the track in many places. It was admitted that the curve is a narrow one, and that it is to be eased. There are no doubt many other similar curves, where an accident of the same character might happen. The existence of such hazards, slight though they are, imposes on the railways staff an obligation to be unceasingly vigilant.