SYDNEY RAILWAY ACCIDENT

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4293, 28 February 1901, Page 5

SYDNEY RAILWAY ACCIDENT

EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST. REMARKA.BLE STATEMENTS. iRr-ceivcd February 28, 0.5 a.m.) SYDNEY, February 27._ The inquest on the victims of the T-vdennarn railway accident was resumed to-day- , The signalmen's records mowed. tnat the wrecked train left Sydney on time, and passed Sydenham Junction between a minute and a minute and a half ahead of time.

The distance from Redfern station to Sydenham Junction it three miles twenty-one chains. The traffic inspector admitted that if the signalmen’s records were true the train must have passed Sydenham at the rate of sixty miles an hour. Passengers in the train said they had travelled in England in trains going sixty miles an hour, and this one was going faster than any they ever saw. Another witness who arrived on the scene shortly after the accident swore that he noticed that a fish-plate had" opened, and that the lino ivns slightly out of position where the train ran off.

The fish-plate was hold by one ins tea or four bolts.

On the following Sunday, accompanied by a policeman, he visited the spot and found the sleepers; the fish-plates had beau replaced. The Hon J. H. Carruthers, member of the Legislative Assembly, deposed that he travelled in. tiro following train.

Ho arrived a, few minutes after theaccident, and saw the fractured fishplate within a rail’s length of where iho train ran cff.

With others he visited the spot on the following Monday, when every thing that could have helped to locate the spot had been removed and repairs made. The railway officials admitted that certain repairs had been made, but not until after the Coroner and jury had scon the spot where the accident oc. cuitocl.