Two Derailments Upset West Coast Rail Traffic

Chronicle (Levin), 31 May 1949, Page 5

Two Derailments Upset West Coast Rail Traffic

Press Association)

(Per

GREYMOUTH, May 31. Two derailments within 12 hours on the Greymouth-Ngahere section of the Grey Valley railway upset traffic on the West Coast thh morning, but as a result of allnight- work by breakdown gangs the line is now open. Eleven of 17 wagons of a Reef-ton-Greymouth goods. train left the rails near Kamaka last evening, The contents of the wagons, mainly coal, werer strewn along the track and even on to the roadway, which runs close to the line. Two wagons were badly damaged. The cause of the derailment, which occurred on a bend, is not yet known. The second derailment occurred at 5.45 o'clock this morning at Wallsend, about four miles nearer Greymouth, when one empty coal hopper of a Greymouth-Westport -oods train left the rails, blocking the line for about an hour. Passengers on rail cars between Greymouth and Stillwater, including those from Christchurch, were conveved by buses. Three times ki the past week the line between Greymouth and Westport has been blocked by mishaps. the earlier occurrence being the derailment of an engine in the Buller Gorge.