MIDNIGHT SMASH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17439, 10 April 1931, Page 4

MIDNIGHT SMASH

FRUIT TRAIN DERAILED j OCCUPANTS’ NARROW ESCAPE With a crash that brought hundreds of people rushing to the scene in cars, buggies and spring-cans, No. 16 “Fruit Mail” train leaped the rails near Gunning, New South Wales, at 12.65 a.in. cm March 26. some of the trucks toppling 3eft. over an embankment. They were reduced to a tangled mass of steel. Three champion show horses were killed, three others were slightly hurt, and 50 tons of fruit was destroyed, but the five occupants of the train had miraculous escapes , from death. A portion of the parapet of a railway bridge was knocked off, but the express was stopped just in time to save the brake-van from a sheer drop of 30ft. i The train was only a quarter of a mile from fhe Gunning station when the crash came. The derailment, took place on a dangerous bend, and was due. it is believed, to the breaking of an axle. The last truck to pass over the strong brick bridge tore part of the structure away. It hung perilously over the edge, but prevented tho brake-van from going over. The guard a. lucky escape when his van plunged forward on to its “nose.” The guard raced forward along the line to warn the Melbourne express train, which was due to pass on tho opposite line a few minutes later. The express was not a regular one. Tt is commissioned only when the occasion demands, and fruit is speedily brought to the city by a special engine. This particular train was on its way from Albury to Darling Harbor with 350 tons of fruit and six horses.