Express Plunged Into Ravine When Wooden Trestle Bridge Collapsed.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17880, 23 June 1926, Page 4

Express Plunged Into Ravine When Wooden Trestle Bridge Collapsed.

FOUR KILLED AND FIFTY INJURED IN ACCIDENT TO BRISBANE TRAIN. Sydney papers to hand this morning contain graphic accounts of the disaster to the Brisbane express on June 10. Four passengers were killed, twenty-four seriously injured, and fully thirty more suffered minor injuries, when four coaches of the express were plunged into a ravine between Aberdeen and Scone, from a wooden trestle bridge which collapsed under the dead weight of a derailed locomotive. A composite sitting and sleeping car that held ten berths and thirty first-class passengers was smashed to pieces. A twenty-berth sleeping car fell on its side under the bridge. A first-class corridor car tilted over the bridge. The leading engine of the train stopped on the bridge with the tender derailed, but the second engine rolled over on its side. One carriage, with a rending of splintered timber, snapped in half, and its passengers were hurled into confused, struggling heaps. Three other coaches that dropped into the darkness of the gully rolled over on their side. In the dim glow of two or three carriage lamps a band of rescuers who had raced to the scene in cars had to cut holes in the overturned coaches to rescue passengers jammed against the roof.

(Special to the “Star.") SYDNEY, June 11. The disaster occurred twenty yards on the Aberdeen side of the road, a mile north of Aberdeen station. The Engine, guard's van, and three carriages were derailed. The engine and guard’s van rolled over on their side, and _ two cars left the rails, also, and remained upright. Those in the third carriage had a terrifying experience. Smashed to Splinters. The carriage rolled over and over down the embankment, and came to rest 20 yards from the line. The front of the carriage was smashed to splinters, and it was here that the dead, and the severely injured were found. It was necessary to rescue the passengers in the second and third cars by placing ladders against the side, and carrying them on the backs of the rescuers to the ground. Doctors from Scone were on the scene half an hour after the smash, while they were followed by nurses from the Stott Memorial Hospital. The doctors and nurses performed magnificent work, and the last of the injured were in hospital by 2 a.m. The Aberdeen Hotel was used as a temporary casualty hospital. When the coaches began their mad plunge most of the passengers were either retiring to their sleepers o dozing in the sitting-up car which carried sixty people. Lights on the train went out, and tre fallin gcas boke up and flung passengers into heaps. Men and women struggled grimly to get out of'the tangled masses of wood and steel which were crushing their bodies. In inky blackness those who got off with minor injuries tore at the splintered timber with their bare hands in frantic efforts to extricate those who were pinned beneath it. Official lists set the number of injured at fifty. Among them were Miss Marie Burke and Mr Wardc Morgan, of the “Katia” company. Mr Morgan is critically injured, his pelvis and thigh having been fractured. The smash occurred a mile beyond Aberdeen, which is 186 miles from Sydney and 82 miles from Newcastle. Aberdeen is little more than a siding. There was neither a doctor nor nurse nearer than Scone, seven miles away, and Muswellbrook, nine miles distant. Six doctors and fifteen nurses were rushed from Newcastle. Lamps Shed Sickly Glow. Down among the dead timber on the banks of the gully two or three carriage lamps that were not smashed shed a sickly glow on terrible-scenes of suffering. Many of those pinned in the wreckage suffered stoically. But screams and groans of others jarred on the nerves and spurred on a band of rescuers fumbling in the dark to renewed efforts. The four coaches that dropped from the trestle lay in a jumbled heap, all of them on their sides. So it was that passengers were so hurled about that to get some of them out holes had to be cut in the roofs of the coaches. As the four carriages swung for a second before they dragged another into the gully, one of them that held sixty-three passengers snapped in halves, with a horrible grinding sound of woodwork being torn asunder. Furrows ploughed in the metal of the permanent way on the Sydney side show that the engine first left the rails before the trestle was reached. As the train dashed on to the high wooden trestle, it seems that the dead weight of the derailed, engine was too much for the bridge. Three spans crumpled up, and with a rending of timber plunged into the boulder-stud-ded ravine below. With them plunged engines and Nos. 1 and 2. The coupling

held, and they dragged over carriages 3 and 4 as they raced on to the trestle. AN EERIE SCENE. Aberdeen has neither doctor nor chemist. In the darkened gully passengers struggled for life. Three doctors from Muswellbrook brought the first help to the injured, some of whom were desperately crushed and battered. It was an eerie scene. Rescuers with a hurricane lantern and carriage lamps climbed over the tumbled coaches. Their way was guided by fearful muffled screams and groans that came up from beneath the mass of splintered wood. It was two hours before all the injured were extricated. Miss Marie Burke was chatting in the lounge car to Mr Edward Royce and Mr Ward .Morgan, leading man, when they were all hurled violently against the carriage ceiling as the coach rolled oyer. Mr Morgan was seriously injured. His pelvis and thigh were broken. Although Aberdeen is a remote bridge siding, it was surprising how fast the news of the disaster traveb led. Car loads of rescuers came whirling down to the gully from the surrounding hills. Three doctors raced to the scene from Scope, and three more from Muswellbrook. After a grim : struggle with smashed timber and twisted steel, which lasted for two hours, a procession of cars, all carrying injured and bleeding passengers, raced along the roads to Scone and Muswellbrook. Messages from Scone indicate that many of the injured are' in a serious condition. The bodies of the passeni gers who were killed were left at Aberdeen until all the injured had been taken to hospital. The passengers who escaped with bruises and shock say that one of the carriages was smashed to matchwood, and from this mass of broken timber men and women crawled out. Among the boulders in the gully battered passengers lay groaning. NIGHT WAS INKY BLACK. Inky blackness in which the lonely gully was shrouded, made the work of the rescue much more difficult. At first the rescuers had to peer among the wreckage with lighted matches. The secretary of the Railway Commissioners (Mr Morris) was at Central Station at five this morning waiting for later information concerning - the disaster. . A telegram lodged at Aberdeen at 4.35 a.m. stated that two engines were attached to the train. No. 3504 (driver, Johnson) and No. 1617 (driver, Monkley). The guard Donogliue was in charge of the train. The telegram continued :—“ The express passed Aberdeen on time at 9.50 p.m. Marks on the permanent way about 200 yards on the Sydney side of the wooden viaduct at mileage 187.50 indicated that one engine and tender were derailed before reaching the viaduct, causing the viaduct to collapse. 5 ' The leading engine, No. 1617, stopped on the Aberdeen Bridge with the tender derailed. Engine 3504 turned over on its side on the north side of the bridge. A second-class express car, containing sixtj’-three passengers, broke in halves. A composite sitting and sleeping car, containing ten berths j and thirty* first-class passengers, was smashed to pieces. A twenty-berth sleeping car fell on its side under the bridge. A firstclass corridor car tilted over on the off side of the bridge, and a twenty-two-berth sleeping car and van stopped at the south side, and was undamaged. The Brisbane mail and express trains and the Glen Innes mail train were delayed about three hours through the accident.