TRAIN DRIVER IS CHARGED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17699, 20 November 1925, Page 8

TRAIN DRIVER IS CHARGED.

PASSENGER’S EVIDENCE ON OPAPA SMASH. p*»r Association. NAPIER, November 20. The hearing of the charges of manslaughter against Frederick Lavin, driver of the engine which jumped the rails with such disastrous results in the Opapa cutting on the evening of September 22, was continued to-day. Charles France, a jockey, said that he saw Marshall (a railway employee) leave the train at Ormondville, where he entered an hotel, and returning with bulges apparent under his coat. Marshall got on the platform of the front carriage, but did not enter the carriage. Marshall's return was after the guard had twice blown his whistle, after which the started. Witness estimated that, the speed down hill was from forty-live to fifty miles an hour. It was so rapid that water from the engine was splashed on the front of the carriage. J>a vi d Wilson, postal clerk. said that when the whistle blew the man who Avent to the hotel and returned left the front carriage and got on the engine. He could not recognise the man again. The train waited seven minutes at Ormondville. but the usual time was about three minutes. Wilfred Alexander, railway enginedriver, said that when the express passed him at I-latuma three men were" in the cab. Marshall being one of them. A school boy said that he saw a third man in the cabin at Ilatuma. lie stood in the entrance ?.nd waved his hand to the other engine as the. train ■passed. John Gardiner, borough inspector at !\Vai pukurall, said that the train approached Waipukurau more slowly than usual. This attracted his attention. \\ he n the train cleared the crossing he saw a man walking towards the hotel nearby. Matthew Good, a railway porter, said that the train approached slower than usual. i John Wright estimated the speed down the cutting at sixty miles an hour. Margaret Jackson, wife of the staJiou master at \\ aipawa, said that the third mail in the cab was doing something to the coal when the train left Jlic station. The man. was Marshall. James G. M'Kenzie, boiler inspector, who was a passenger, said that the speed was excessive and the cause of •the accident. Ho did not think the 'brakes were applied. He helped to get Marshall out from/the rear of the engine. Witness found in the cab the lower portion of a broken beer bottle. Alexander Krey said that the track was all right when be inspected it the same day, prior to the accident.