STARTLING JOLT ON SLOW TRAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19049, 30 June 1924, Page 2

STARTLING JOLT ON SLOW TRAIN

ENGINE SUFFERS IN IMPACT. GUARD RECEIVES MINOR INJURIES. INCIDENT AT PAEKAKARIKI. Passengers reclining sleepily on the slow up-train at Paekakariki on Thursday evening (says the Manawatu Times) received a sudden and startling awakening that some of them will remember long after the soreness has passed. Those who are under the painful necessity of making that five-hour journey from Wellington to Palmerston North will remember that while the more fortunate ones are refreshing themselves at the counter, the engine-driver has to reduce the length of his train by a brace of carriages. While performing the evolutions necessary to this nightly duty, the driver last evening through some misunderstanding, shunted back on the stationary carriages before the signal was given. A terrific impact followed. The first Guard Stevens knew of it was when he picked his much bruised anS dazed person out of a medley of milk cans with which he had been busy in the van. Fortunately they were empty. Mr Stevens was rather severely shaken and received a number of cuts to his face, a liberal application of sticking plaster being necessary before he could resume his journey. Apart from the general alarm occasioned by the noise and the jolt, none of the passengers received serious hurt. One little girl standing at the door of a carriage was flung right across two platforms through the door of the adjoining car. She was more surprised than hurt. The force of the collision may be judged from the condition in which the engine emerged. The end of the boiler was stove right in and the locomotive had to be relieved of further duty for the night. Starting forty minutes late from Paekakariki the train overhauled a good deal of lost time, nnd landed in Palmerston North only twenty minutes late.