ENGINE DERAILED.

Otago Witness, Issue 3773, 6 July 1926, Page 76

ENGINE DERAILED.

SEVERAL TRUCES TELESCOPED. DARGAVILLE, June 30. The first serious accident of any kind to take place on tho Pukchuia-Waiotira section of the North Auckland Main Trunk railway system, which is still under the oontrol of the Public Works Department, took place near Omaanai to-day, when an engine and some trucks were derailed and a locomotive fireman, named C. Moore, was so seriously injured that he had to be taken to the hospital at Whangarei. The weather has been very wet • during tho past three days, and this caused the filling at the approrch to the bridge to subside, and t was not noticed till the train was right on to it, with the result that the engine left the rails and the following trucks telescoped on to it. The fireman was extricated from the wreckage and sent to hospital, but no one else was injured. The engineer in charge of Ihe works (Mr Gibson) soon hod a gang of men at work putting the derailed engine and the trucks on the line, and the traffic was resumed later on in the day. The spot where the accident took place was very soft, especially after the heavy and continued rain, and has given the Public Works Department muon trouble in the past.