RUNAWAY TRAM

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21528, 15 December 1939, Page 5

RUNAWAY TRAM

Violent Collision With Stationary Car Motorman Suffers Broken Leg By telegraph-Piess Association AUCKLAND. December 13. The motorman of a tram was severely injured and the passengers, two of whom were slightly hurt, had a remarkable escape when a stationary tramcar was struck by another tram which became out of control when descending a hill on Remucra Road this evening. With its brakes useless, the descending car gained momentum rapidly and both vehicles were extensively damaged in the violent collision which followed. When the motorman, Franklyn Thrussell, aged 30, of Onehunga was removed from the totally wrecked cab of the descending tram, ho was suffering from a fracture of both bones of the right leg. A passenger alighting from the stationary tram, M. S. Allan, was cut on the face and an elderly woman passenger in the moving car suffered from shock. Both -trams were proceeding from the city. Efforts by Thrussell to apply the brakes were of no avail and as the car rapidly gathered speed he sounded the gong almost continuously to warn the tram ahead. Several passengers considered that the motorman’s action in ringing the alarm until the moment of the crash may have saved several from injury. With the platforms of both trams telescoped by the force of the collision the cabs and their equipment were reduced to fragmentary wreckage. The control boxes and other electrical equipment were not only broken and twisted beyond recognition, but also forced through the partitions into th? compartments of the cars. The trams were prised apart. The splintered roofs and the heavy chassis were practically all that remained of the platforms. Thrussell was taken to the Auckland Hospital in an ambulance, and his condition to-night was stated to be not serious. The accident caused considerable delay to traffic until the damaged trams were removed to the depot.