EARLY MORNING MIST.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17065, 18 August 1917, Page 9

EARLY MORNING MIST.

SENSATIONAL ESCAPE OF A RAIL-

WAY MAN

(From our Travelling Reporter.)

There were some quickly-beating hearts at Eastown yesterday morning, and it was quite a piece of good * luck for a railway employee that there were not some broken bones, as well 'as a s-mashed-up jigger. There was an accident. The controller of the jigger had the closest call of his life, but the vehicle that conveys him over the line is no more. There was a heavy mist at Eastown when the early train for the south pulled out of Aramoho, and it was difficult to see far ahead. Racing along in front of the ttain, an employee of the Railway Department was working his passage on a jigger, and as he heard the train thundering along in th. c rear, he thought he could reach Eastown station first. He miscalculated the speed of the train, on a cold, misty morning, however, and just as be reached the crossing he concluded that the oace was too hot, and that it was safer off the railway track. Consequently, by a lucky jump, be was able to clear himself of the jigger, and fell on the roadside just a y s the engine caught the jigger and smashed it to pieces. Passengers received a fright at the sudden stop of the train at the crossing, and hearing the smashing of wood; but when they learned what had occurred, and the narrow escape the manipulator of the jigger had, they all felt thankful that a tragedy had been averted.