A TABLET HUNT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 29, 17 January 1912, Page 3

A TABLET HUNT.

A RAILWAY INCIDENT.

.Holiday-makers .at the -sea-side, compelled by the dirty weather to draw upon their own resources for occupation and amusement, hail as a godsend any local happening, and the losing of a railway tablet'at Warrington, near Dunedin, on the, Saturday evening before ! Christmas, caused quite a stir (says the Dunedin Star). The express for Dunedin did not properly catch hold of the tablet in passing. Something went amiss with the automatic deliverer,, , tfye „train, aim, instead of unhooking the tablet, hit it a whack and sent it Hying. From a railway point of view, the losing of a tablet is a affair. . Until the tablet is found or certified as lost and replaced every train has to be piloted over the section. In this case nobody could find the tablet, so the Seacliff stationmaster went on duty as pilot whilst five railway men and a host of volunteers hunted about.

The search was resumed early on Sunday morning, and tho officials satisfied themselves that tho tablet was finally lost. Amongst the volunteers, however, was Mr Trewon, a traveller. He took up the inquiry scientifically, calculating the power of the blow, tho direction of the wind, the weight of tho tablet, and so on, and, armed with fcboso calculations, he approximately located the spot, and there, suro enough, the tablet was found on Sunday evening. It had travelled 60yds or 70yds, and, being end on, it had buried itself in a heap of debris from old fir trees. A similar Christmas lOvo incident occurred on the Waikato line at Whangamarino, near Mercer, in 1909, when the day Main Trunk express, bound from Wellington to Auckland, was held up for about an hour and a half through the losing of a tablet under circumstances similar to the southern incident. On that occasion, however, no passenger with a turn for scientific calculation came to light.