RAILWAY COLLISION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12399, 12 October 1903, Page 6

RAILWAY COLLISION.

IA SENSATIONAL SMASH. Further particulars of the serious railway collision, at Lawson (New South Wales), referred to in our cablegrams recently,- show that a stock train which left Wentworth Falls at v quarter-past six had reached a distant signal when the draw bar of a passenger carriage attached to the sheep trucks broke. Being on a steep grade, the driver was unable to push the train back, and there was not sufficient brake power to hold the disabled portion to take it into the yard. He accordingly ran into the station with the stock portion, and ..was shunted into a siding, where the engine was detached and returned for the disabled cars. "

In the meantime the ordinary Saturday night passenger train had been detained at Wentworth Falls ' waiting for the arrival of the stock train at Lawson. Unaware of the accident, a porter gave Wentworth Falls the signal to bring the train on, and within ten minutes it crashed into the brake van and carriages. The impact was heard in the town', threequarters of a mile away, and there was a rush to the scene of the disaster. The twe disabled carriages were broken into matchwood, the wreckage being piled fully 15lt, high. The brake van, which received the full force of the collision, was also badly wrecked while the engine had the buffers broken off, the front plate smashed, and the boiler plates twisted and bent inwards. The buffers of the first car of the passenger train were driven through into the second car, smashing the seats completely. Foui carriages, the brake van, and the engine left the rails and ploughed deeply into the ballast. Marvellous to say, no lives were lost, nor was any serious injury sustained by any of the _ passengers. Only one complained of a bruise on the leg from a portion of the buffer, but a drover named Arthur Manly, who was in charge of some sheep, and who was at the time asleep in the compartment attached to the brake van, had a miraculous escape. After the collision he crawled from under the debris uninjured, with the exception of a slight gash on the check. A coffin containing the'body of a young man who had died at Mount Victoria, was in the first compartment of the train' but was not damaged. The night was intensely dark, with thick mountain mist and heavy rain. Archdeacon Langley, who was a passenger, afterwards conducted a thanksgiving service on the railway station.