DELIBERATE CRASH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22878, 5 November 1937, Page 5

DELIBERATE CRASH

RAILWAY TRAIN WRECKED TESTS ON INDIAN LINE • The spectacle of a 600-ton train hurtling at 50, miles an hour to destruction was provided at Jamalpur, India, during official tests to find the causes and nature of the derailment at Bihta, Bihar, of'the Punjab express, when 100 people were killed. Plunging on after passing over a deflected rail the ensrine leapt at a buffer consisting of 500 tons of earth The noise of a heavy explosion and a momentary "black out" of flying earth, stones and timber followed. The first four coaches were telescoped and smashed to splinters. It is believed that this is the first time such an experiment has been carried out in India. Crowds which gathered to see it were kept well out of the danger area. Earlier experiments were confined to slow derailments under a variety of circumstance?Examinations carried out at Bihta by experts immediately after the disaster and the collation of data thus obtained led to certain lines of thought as to the cause of . the accident. For a more detailed study of these problems, the circumstances attending the Bihta accident were duplicated as nearly as possible at Jamalpur. An engine of precisely the same type was used.