MAIN TRUNK LINE BLOCKED

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 27, 27 October 1942, Page 4

MAIN TRUNK LINE BLOCKED

Mishap To Freight Train FOURTEEN WAGONS DERAILED Dominion Special Service. . WANGANUI, October 26. The Main Trunk line was temporarily blocked at 3.10 p.m. today, when 14 wagons attached to a special freight train running between Taumarunui and Taihape left the rails at the south end of Mataroa station. The engineers expect to have the wreckage cleared by 3 a.m. tomorrow, but in the meantime the express which left Wellington at 3 p.m. today for Auckland has been diverted, to the Stratford-Okahu-kura line. The additional runningtime is approximately three and a half hours.

According to advice received in Wanganui tonight it was expected that both expresses from Auckland and also the Limited from Wellington would go through the Main. Trunk. The special was making a non-stop run through Mataroa when a wagon near the locomotive became derailed at points at the south end of the station yards. By the time the train was brought to a standstill 13 other wagons, most of them fully loaded, had become a string of wreckage which completely blocked the permanent way. One wagon, tossed over on to its side, crashed into a pole and brought down telephone lines, temporarily severing railway communications between Wellington and Auckland. For a time officials making arrangements for the clearing of the track were handicapped, but the lines were soon restored. A 10-ton breakdown crane was dispatched from Ohakune at 4 p.m. and all the available men and equipment, including a breakdown van from Wanganui, were hurried to the scene of the derailment. Passengers by the mixed train which left Taumarunui at 9.10 a.m. for Marton were transhipped by road between Mataroa and Taihape.

The express from Wellington to Auckland passed through Aramoho Junction at 9 o’clock tonight, 20 minutes behind schedule. It whs a heavy train, consisting of 10 cars and two vans.