UNKNOWN

Temuka Leader, Issue 7662, 31 December 1914, Page 3

UNKNOWN

ATTEMPT VO WRECK NIGHT TRAIN. HUGE BOULDERS FIXED IN LINE. ON OPIHI RIVER BRIDGE. NEAR TEMUKA.

Marly yesterday morning the railway gangers discovered evidences show ing that a diabolical crime had been attempted overnight a deliberate, fiendish' attempt had been made to wreck and pluugd into Ihu Opilvi lHivcr anv night excursion train that might be passing. Two huge’boulders, that only powerful men could lilt, weighing over a couple of hundredweight, had been lifted from' the Opihi riverbed and wedged in between the beams and -leepers of the bridge in such a fashion ilmt no railway train could have shifted them, The monster boulders were wode*ed, on cither side of -the line, hard up against, the line, and with Just .sufficient slant as would serve the purpose of levering np the cowcatcher ml guiding the engine off iib 1 rails. If, was not the work, of . a child or .larrikin, but that ( ,E a cool, calculating criminal. The fiendish arrangements were ro- : ported to the police immediately by the. gangers, and the obstacles were removed.

There is no doubt that the abominable scheme would have succeeded, had it not providentially hapixmod that no night train was running ,that night (he Inst (rain having left Temuka for Timaru ai (5.30 p.m. Obviously the miserennl or miscreants were notsuflieienlly acquainted with the holiday excursion lime-tabh- ; hence-their dread fid scheme went agley. |!ad a train been passing, and .gruck the boulder, engine and carriages would probably have crashed through the bridge into the riverbed below, with such fearful loss of Ideas can onlv be imagined. The attempt -“hows Dm urgent necessity of patrolling the railway lines by night while nighl trains are. running.'