TRAIN SMASH

Southland Times, Issue 18990, 11 July 1923, Page 5

TRAIN SMASH

IMPRESSIONS OF ACCIDENT. Among the passengers on the train to which the accident occurred was the wellknown Dunedin tenor, Mr Ernest Drake, who arrived back in Dunedin on Monday evening (says the Evening Star). Seen by a reporter, he stated that he was thankful he was travelling in a carriage near the rear end of the train. The smash occurred just before daylight. The impact, as felt in the carriage in which he was travelling, was not severe—at any rate, it was not bad enough to suggest that such a terrible accident had occurred. The alarm being given, Mr Drake, with other passengers, got out quickly and went to the front of the train to render assistance. ‘The sights I saw," he continued, “were fearful, and I would not care to say much about them for fear of hurting the feelings of relatives. Everybody assisted, and everything possible was done under the circumstances. It took about two and a-half hours to get all the injured out." Mr Drake said it was a good thing for the injured that so many people carried spirits with them on the train, as stimulants were badly needed. The groans of the injured were heart-rending; but the grit displayed by these people was wonderful. The sights were the more gruesome because most of the people were injured about their faces. The big boulder said (Mr Drake) which was the cause of the smash was carried along about 60 yards by the engine, the front of which was knocked out. The rails were snapped like knitting needles and the sleepers pounded to matchwood. Had it not been for a bank about the height of the engine, against which it fell, the whole train would probably have fallen into the river, when a more terrible and all-embracing tragedy must have followed. The relief train came from Taumarunul about an hour after the accident. Mr Drake speaks highly of the way in which the wounded were got out. At Taumanmui everyone possessing a motor-car seemed to have it ready to transport the sufferers to the hospital. The passengers who were uninjured left Taumarunui in the afternoon, and on the journey from there saw an engine derailed. Between Wellington and Auckland they travelled in five trains, the journey altogether occupying about thirty-two hours. From Ohakune they came straight through to Wellington. In Auckland Mr Drake met a friend interested in musical matters who wished he were travelling with Mr Drake to have * yarn with him on the journey. This friend, however, said that as he had some obligations to meet he would be travelling secondclass. When Mr Drake alighted after the accident his friend was one of the first he saw among the dead. “The whole thing," concluded Mr Drake, “is more vivid in my mind’s eye now than it was at the time. It was a horrible experience. The sights I saw at, Ongarue I hope never to see again."