DAMAGE TO TRAIN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19423, 7 September 1937, Page 8

DAMAGE TO TRAIN

EMERGENCY BRAKE USED IRRESPONSIBLE PERSON TWO PASSENGERS PALL <P«r Frags Association.) INVERCARGILL, last night. The special express train from * Christchurch, by which visitors to the second Rugby football test match returned to Invercargill last night parted in two, leaving six carriages attached to the engine and 12 uncoupled as it was coming alongside the platform of the railway station at 10.56 o'clock, and two passengers, who were .standing on the rear platform of the sixth carriage were thrown to the track. Neither was Injured. The train was an unusually long and heavy one, consisting of 18 carriages, all of which were rilled with passengers. While the train was coming alongside the platform, the emergency lever in the second carriage from the "engine was pulled, and the brakes were instantaneously applied. The shock was so severe that a set of couplings broke and the train parted about six cars from the engine. The platforms were crowded with passengers preparing to leave the train, and when the break occurred two men were thrown to the track. Ari inspection of the train after the accident showed that considerable damage had been done. The hook that linked the sixth and seventh cars had snapped in half with the strain and the iron stanchions on the sixth * carriage had been torn away, not one being left standing. The two iron - gates on either side of the platform .-"' had "Deen ripped from their hinges. . —. mum iyon framework on the seventh carriage platform was severeb wrenched. The shock of the sudden atop, caused several windows to break and broken glass lay in the carriages and on the track. A porcelain wash basin in one carriage was shattered and the waterpipe lay in fragments " ; biv the floor, . ; Railway offtciala stated that the

'ever must have been pulled by some irresponsible person in the carriage. There was no apparent reason for the brakes to be applied.

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