RUNAWAY ENGINE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16674, 2 March 1925, Page 9

RUNAWAY ENGINE.

W AIHI-ATH KNR EE .SECTION OF EAST COAST LINE. SOME NARROW ESCAPES. (Per Press Association.) WAIITI, this day. A forty-ton railway engine of the. Public Works Department, on the Waihi-Alhenree section of the East Coast Main Trunk line, came to grief this morning. The engine, with ten trucks attached, including one in which forty-five workmen were travelling to ■vyorlc at Athenree, had only just started on the journey, when the driver noticed that,the points were open to the engine shed. AIL efforts of the driver to pull the engine up were unavailing, owing to the grade, and) slippery condition of the rails. However, he managed to reduce the speed to about three miles, when the engine entered the shed. Continuing its course it knocked out the end of the shed!, where there was a. drop of six feet. Meanwhile the men, observing their danger, leapt clear of the other side of the rail's. The enginedriver and two others in the- cab stuck to their posts until the shed was reached’, when „J,hey jumped clear and escaped, with the exception of one who sustained slight scratches and bruises. The engine was not seriously damaged.