RAILWAY ACCIDENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20490, 15 February 1930, Page 12

RAILWAY ACCIDENT

CO-RONER BLAMES OFFICIALS.

TWO MEN SENT FOR TRIAL

(Received February 14, 10.5 p.m.) SYDNEY, Feb. Id. A coroner's inquiry into tho railway accident at Warrimoo. on January 27, when the driver ( imd fireman of a train were killed, was concluded to-day. The evidence showed that the accident was due to the laxity of certain officials who had left the lock off tho catch points, so causing the derailment. Tho coroner found that the pilot-man, Robert Hindniursh, 1 and' the. flag-man, Alexander Gollen, had been guilty of culpable negligence. He committed both inon for trial. Each was allowed bail of ii 50.

Thomas Berkley, signalman at Blaxland, was severely censured.

The engine of a crowded passenger train travelling from Mount Victoria to Sydney on January 27 loft the rails at Warrimoo, in tho mountains, and plunged over an embankment. Tho driver, Harold Hannah, and the fjreman, lid ward Smith, weio crushed to death.

Doctors worked desperately amid escaping steam beneath the wrecked engine and succeeded in freeing a, youth, who was also pinned down, by amputating his hand. The horror of the scene was intensified by the darkness and by heavy rain. Breakdown gangs were rushed to the scene and struggled to oxtricato tho trapped victims. Tho fierce flame of an oxy-acelylene apparatus failed to cut through the thick steol walls of tho engine, however. One passenger was hurt and others suffered from shock.