LEVEL CROSSING CRASH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20958, 22 August 1931, Page 14

LEVEL CROSSING CRASH.

FIVE CHILDREN KILLED. TRAIN AND MOTOR-BUS. HEARTRENDING RESCUE WORK. [from our own correspondent.] SYDNEY, August 13. A graphic story was told by an eyewitness of the level-crossing smash at Toodyay, Western Australia, last week, when five schoolchildren were killed and 12 injured, several seriously. A motorbus taking 34 country children to Tood yay school came into collision with a special wheat train travelling from Toodyay toward Piawaning. Mr. Clive Piosse, who lives a few yards from the crossing, said that it was his custom to take his two infant children to the verandah of his home to allow thom to watch the early-morning train pass. Yesterday morning, however, he did not do so because oi the, fog, which he considered would render the train invisible. He heard the train whistle as it approached tho crossing as he was walking from the back (Joor to the woodshed.

"I heard a loud crash," Mr. Piesse said, "and, looking in the direction of the crossing,, saw a charabanc being pushed slowly along the rails past my house. I did not hear any shouting and 1 was so stunned by what X saw thjit for the moment I did not realise the full significance of what had happened. I did not imagine that it was the schoolchildren's charabanc. Side of Bus Burst Open. "Tho silence and the awe-inspiring slowness, but certainty, with which the huge vehicle was being pushed along the rails were uncanny. Tho great bulk of the charabanc, with the steam-enshrouded locomotive behind it, loomed out of the fog. There was not a sound of human voices that I could hear, and the silence awed me, so that, perhaps, my senses were numbed. "Then I saw the "terrible thing. Hie side of the charabanc was forced slowly, inch bv inch it seemed to me, against a stout, massive fence guarding the cattlepit, "The side of tho vehicle burst open as I watched and out of the gaping hole that had been made poured a seemingly unending stream of children. "I could scarcely believe my eyes. School books and 'fancy costumes rained on the ground on top of them', and then I realised exactly the nature of the disaster to which I had been a witness. I then recollected that it was just about the hour when boys and girls from Coondle and other places went to school by bus. Attention to the Injured. "Calling out to my wife to come quickly, I set off at a run. I climbed through the wreckage and made direct to the home of Dr. Carlin, who lives on the opposite side of the line, and about the same distance from it as my home. He hurried back with me and when 1 reached the line other residents had arrived and had begun the task of attending to tlu injured and extricating tho dead. "It was marvellous how everybody worked. The women were wonderful. They seemed to keep their heads better than the men, and worked in silence, lifting out huddled little forms and bandaging and carrying water to those who cried for it. "The men took on the heavier tasks. Crowbars and other implements were produced, seemingly from nowhere, and herculean efforts were applied to the work of releasing those who were beneath the train. Heartrending work it was. The children were so silent; everything was silent. It was the silence (hat impressed me from the time the first sounds of the crash died away."