BEAUFORT DISASTER

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 771, 21 March 1910, Page 7

BEAUFORT DISASTER

CORONER'S FINDINC. THE CAUSES OF THE ACCIDENT. Bj Tcleeraph—Prtss Association—Coryriaui (Rec. March 20, 5 p.m.) Melbourne, March 20. At the inquest on the Beaufort railway disaster, the coroner found as follows:— That the accident was primarily due to the unskilfulness and carelessness of the driver Coward, or to' an error in his manipulation of the brakes. That if the fitter (Fewster) had done his duty faithfully the accident would not have occurred.

That the drivers, Gronn and Coward, instead, of insisting on the fitter doing his duty, had taken the risk of running the engine, as it was. ;

The contributory causes were failure, to properly repair the" engine and the long period (fourteen hours) that Coward had been on duty. THE STORY OF THE ACCIDENT. The disaster referred to in the above cablegram occurred at 2.45 a.m. on February 5, at Beaufort (123 miles north-west of Melbourne). A ; goods train from Ararat, drawn by two enf gines, instead of drawing up at Beaufort, ran into the buffer stops, or "dead-end," cansing three deaths. The driver (Coward) and the fireman (Russell) of the second engine were killed instantly. The fireman (Gilliard) of the first engine died subsequently while the driver (Gronn) of the leading engine was. badly scalded. The survivor, Gronn, driver of the first engine, complained that before leaving Stawell his ,'engine was not properly braked. It appears that the engine was practically without brake power on the fatal journey. The railway officials admit that the second engine was of low brake power. Gronn stated that when the accident occurred there was a Scotch mist, and the rails ,w.ere slippery. As he came down the Beaufort bank the first thing lie knew wa-s that the train was'on the No. 2 line. He called out: "Good God 1 Charlio, we are on No. 2. There is a dead-end. . Jump." ■ But before either could jump the crash came, and the huge engines, with a heavy wheat train behind, were piled up. Driver Coward, before he left home, is said to have remarked. to his. wife, "There will be a smash up one of these days; we have to work so long that we are often half asleep on our jobs." It was mentioned at the time that the ill-fated crews of the engines had been overworked. In reply to inquiries the secretary for railways stated that on Thursday (February 3) Driver Coward'worked 4j hours,' and was then off duty for 13i hours. On Friday (February 4), the day before' the accident, with the \ exception of a short interval at . Stawell, he was at'his , post 14J hours. Altogether, Driver' Gronn was 15£ hours on duty on the Friday. Fireman Russell had 14 hours' rest before resuming on the Friday, and Fireman Gilliard 18}: hours. ~