THE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4129, 16 October 1884, Page 3

THE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Auckland, This day. Robertson, tho driver of the Onehunga train -makes the following , statement re'■•ardi'ng the collision:—! left Onehunga five minute's behind time. We had then a train of six large carriages and a luggage van. Wo proceeded at a speed of fifteen miles an hour. We had reached Newmarket in safety, and by this time the carriages were full of passengers, and there must have been quite 200 on board. There is a curve just before entering the tunnel, where we

usually slowed down. On rounding this curve, and as the front of the train was commencing to enter the tunnel, I perceived another locomotive approaching the Auckland side of the tunnel, and coming towards us. Fortunately the wind, was blowing from a favorable quarter, and the smoke which usually hangs after the previous train had passed through, thus making it utterly impossible to see danger ahead for any distance, had cleared away, and I could see the whole length of the tunnel without interruption, but for this circumstance no earthly power, I consider, could have saved us, and neither I nor anyone else would have lived to tell the tale. When I first saw the engine I could not tell whether it was drawing a train of carriages after it. I exclaimed to my mate "Are they mad in Auckland to send a train off at this timer , I blew the alarm whistle, signalled to the guard to put on the brakes, and with all the promptitude in my power reversed the machinery and endeavored to stop. We had got about half way through the tunnel when the train had been brought almost to a standstill. We were just moving, not s-oing more than a mile an hour. The runaway was then coming right into us at a speed of about ten miles an hour. As soon as we had stopped, and I saw at what speed the approaching engine was coming up, I said to the fireman, "We are safe." The shock came, but the concussion was a good deal broken ou account of the brakes being on tho train, and the passengers consequently did not feel the force of the collision so much as the fireman and myself. As soon as the engines had met I jumped on to the runaway and shut off steam. The pressure had then fallen to 10 pounds to the inch.