ACCIDENT TO TRAIN

Wairarapa Daily Times, 7 September 1937, Page 2

ACCIDENT TO TRAIN

LEVER TAMPERED WITH. CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE DONE. INVERCARGILL, Monday. A special express train from Christchurch, by which visitors to the second Rugby football test match returned to Invercargill last night, parted in two, leaving six carriages attached to the engine and 12 uncoupled, as it was coming alongside the platform of the railway station at 10.56 o’clock, and two passengers who were standing on the rear platform of the sixth carriage were thrown to the track. Neither

was injured. The train was an unusually long and heavy one, consisting of 18 carriages, all of which were filled with passengers. While the train was coming alongside the platform, an emergency lever in the second carriage from the engine was pulled and the brakes were instantaneously applied. The shock was so severe that a set of couplings broke and the train parted six cars from the engine. The platforms were crowded with passengers preparing to leave the train. An inspection of the train after the accident showed that considerable damage had been done. The hook that linked the sixth and seventh cars had snapped in half with the strain and iron stanchions on the sixth carriage had been torn away, not one being left standing. Two iron gates on either side of the platform had been ripped from their hinges. The iron framework on the seventh carriage platform was severely wrenched. The .shock of the sudden stop caused several windows to break and broken glass lay in the carriages and on the track. A porcelain wash basin in one carriage was shattered and a waterpipe lay in fragments on the floor.

I Railway officials stated that the ! lever must have been pulled by some irresponsible person in the carriage. There was no apparent reason for the brakes to be applied.—(P.A.)