TRAINS COLLIDE

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1934, Page 7

TRAINS COLLIDE

GUARD’S VAN TELESCOPED

SENSATIONAL SMASH OCCURS BQWH ISLAND EXPRESS HIT MXP SEEN BY LATER TRAIN ENGINE BURIED IN WRECK By Telegraph—Press Association. > Christchurch, Last Night.. Two passenger trains were involved in a sensational smash on the Sockbum railway crossing early on Saturday evening, when an engine drawing a train from Little River crashed into a luggage waggon at the back of the express from Invercargill. The train from the south had been pulled up at the crossing because of engine trouble and was apparently not seen by the driver of the engine following it until only 50 yards separated the two trains. With a terrific noise that was heard almost a mile away the second engine tore its way into the waggon, smashing the steel understructure, forcing the waggon bodily some feet into the air and encasing itself almost inextricably between the waggon sides. The big engine was buried in the wreckage and luggage so completely that only the rear tender remained uncovered by the roof of the van. The impact was so great that even the front . engines on the express were damaged slightly. Passengers on both trains were thrown suddenly from their seats on to the carriage floors. Luggage followed them, and in confusion it Was naturally thought that there had been a major disaster, but by some unusual stroke of good fortune not a soul on either of the trains was badly hurt. There Were some passengers who received shock and bad bruises, and one had to be treated at the Christchurch Public Hospital. Even the train crews, including the driver and fireman of the Little Rivei- engine, escaped. The luggage van was crushed and twisted and burst and its contents flung for many yards. Wreckage and pieces of broken steel covered the lines. The guard’s van on the express was derailed, as was portion of the telescoped luggage waggon, and the chassis of the postal waggon on the same train was badly damaged. WRECKAGE SOON CLEARED. The wreckage was cleared away and the main line was ready .for use again before 1 a.m. The mishap delayed the arrival of the express at Christchurch for nearly two hours, with consequent delay in the departure of the steamer for Wellington. The smash occurred, at approximately 7.20 p.m., six minutes before the express was due to arrive at Christchurch. Two locomotives were pulling the express train, which was carrying a heavy load of passengers. When engine trouble developed in the second locomotive just after passing Hornby the train was pulled up right across the Main South Road at Sockburn, and it was discovered that a break had occurred in the journal, a part of one of the axles of the engine. The express had been stopped barely a minute when passengers who were leaning from the windows anxious to find the cause of the delay saw the oncoming train from ’ Little River not 70 yards away. These people naturally thought that the second train would pull up, but the driver did not see the light on the rear van of the express until he was only 50 yards away. He applied the brakes immediately, but on the wet rails they were -unable to stop the train before it had reached the express. The nose of the engine cut through the rear van like a knife, lifting it into the air and squeezing the luggage into, a compact mass at the far end. The engine buried itself completely, the sides of the van encasing it as neatly as a shed. The under-carriage of the van was smashed into an unrecognisable mass of broken planks, steel and iron girders and wheels. The rear bogey with its four wheels, although keeping to the rails, was torn from its bearings and forced by the cow catcher of the engine close up against the leading wheels, which left the track and ploughed into the shingle. Couplings and stanchions were twisted and broken. The sides of the van were tom open, revealing an indescribable confusion inside. Dead rabbits were hanging from the sides of the encased engine, vege-, tables spilling on to the line from a burst sack, and a mass of shattered woodwork mixed hopelessly with children’s prams, passengers’ luggage, broken suit-cases and packing cases, twisted bicycles and battered boxes. The engine finished with its nose very close to the rear of the second to last van on the express (the postal van), the rear couplings of which were severely damaged, although the van did not leave the line. The guard’s van, which was that nearest the last -passenger carriage, was derailed and the couplings damaged. The rear bogey was forced off the line. The engine of the Little River train was found to be slightly damaged structurally on one side when it was eventually cleared of the wreckage. Right at the front of the express, about 270 yards from the smashed luggage van, the force of the impact caused damage. The express was drawn by two locomotives and at the front of the second of these the cow-catcher couplings and some of the brake fittings were twisted and broken. DAMAGED PASSENGER COACH. The first passenger car on the train was of the old wooden type, and this was the only passenger van damaged. The heavy draw-bar of the coupling steel, two inches thick and four inches deep, was bent back as if it was soft metal. The iron railings round the rear platform and the roof supports were broken clear, the automatic air brake couplings were broken off and pieces of metal were scattered round the track. Passengers in this car received a very severe shaking. That so much damage was done at the front of the train while the intervening cars were only shaken is explained by the inertia of the two massive express locomotives. The shock was readily passed from one light steel passenger car to another along the train, but the locomotives acted as a block to it and much of its force was spent on the wooden carriage immediately behind them. Eye-witnesses who saw the accident were amazed at the miraculous escape of the crew of the Little River engine. The catcher lifted the van on the express high in the air, and as the engine ploughed into the train in front of it the fireman and driver were thrown against the controls with the force of the crash. They had only the glass, windows of the cabin to protect them from flying splinters of wood and metal. The glass was cracked but not broken, but the steel girder part of what had been the floor of the van ahead was forced through an open window of the cabin a few inches past the driver’s head. He narrowly escaped very serious injury. When the train had stopped he and the fireman found themselves temporarily shut in in a double-walled prison, with the van resting on the smoke stack of the engine. It is thought that only the light conitructiQn fee w»» whidi was feus

able to give way to the shock of the impact and act as a buffer, prevented more serious damage. It seems certain that had the Little River train been travelling at full speed, or had it been a bigger train, nothing could have saved disaster for the passengers in both trains. If there had been a van of strong and modem design attached to the rear of the express instead of a light “roadsider” the whole of the front train would have had to take the full force of the tremendous impact. As it was, it is highly probable that only the strongly-made modem steel cars which are used on the express saved the telescoping of a great part of the train.

No one was travelling in the rear van at the time of the accident, but the members of the train crews in the vans on both the express and the Little River train were badly shaken about. The guard of the second train was in the van behind the engine and was thrown to the floor, receiving a severe shock. There were only a few passengers in the Little River train, not more than ten, and all of them were badly shaken and bruised. Luggage falling from the racks, two women fainting, passengers thrown from their seats and others who had been looking out of the windows being bruised and cut as they were banged against the window frames, were described by a woman passenger in the second to last passenger car of the express. APPROACHING TRAIN WATCHED. When the train stepped, she said, the passengers were naturally curious and looked out of the windows. She saw the Little River train approaching and watched it for some time until she realised that it was likely to hit the express. She considered herself lucky to have withdrawn her head from the window before the impact. After that came the violent shock of the collision, accompanied by a tremendous noise. There was a violent, rending crash, and then a deafening escape of steam as pressure was-released from the locomotive of the Little River train. In the carriage everything was confusion.

The accident could have been caused either by the driver of the Little River engine failing to see the automatic signal if it was against him, or by the failure of the signal system itself. After the accident the driver and the fireman both stated that the signals in that section of the line between Hornby and the crossing were in favour of their train proceeding. A woman eye-witness said it would have been impossible for the driver to see the signals at the crossing ahead because the lights were obscured by smoke from the two locomotives on the express. An official of the Railway Department stated that normally, with the express in the position in which it had pulled up, there would be the usual red signal against the oncoming Little River train and farther back a caution signal against it showing yellow. The train in any section held the signals immediately at the rear. Visibility was bad. There was misty, drizzling rain falling, and _no moonlight. The result was that the Little River train was so close to the express before the driver saw the rear lights of the van ahead that he did not have time to pull the train up. Misty conditions would considerably shorten the range of fe§ gftSfeete jwwgififl MgbL ,