RAILWAY ACCIDENT AT WAITATI

Dunstan Times, Issue 1070, 27 October 1882, Page 3

RAILWAY ACCIDENT AT WAITATI

(Condensed from Daily Times report). Considerable alarm was occasioned in Dunedin on Saturday evening by a report that a serious accident had occurred near Blueskin to the 4 15 pm. train from Dunedin to Oamaru. Tho rumours afloat were vague and contradictory, and happily proved to he in most cases of a very exaggerated character, for in reality none of the passengers were seriously injured, though the train was, it may he said, completely wrecked. From information obtained at Waitati from passengers by the train and from other witnesses we are able to supply the following full particulars concerning the accident. The train comprised a six-wheel coupled “P” engine, five passenger carriages, one road side waggon, and the usual brake-van. All the passenger carriages were crowded, and th- re must have been fully 80 persons onboard. At the time of the accident the train—having massed the Purakanni curves and cliffs, which are popularly regarded as the more dangerous portions of the line—was nearing the Waitati station, and rounding the sharp curve some fifty yards on the Dunedin aide of the bridge that spans the Waitati stream. The engine was running, with steam shut off, at the rate of from 12 to 14 miles an hour. When a short distance from the bridge the engine, from some unknown cause, jumped off the line in the cutting, and after running a short distance on the sleepers it was brought up by the left bank of the cutting. The result was peculiar, and showed the extreme violence of the concussion. Tho waggon next the engine was thrown off the line and fell on its side, lying at right angles to the engine and completely blocking the opening on one side of the engine cab. The couplings of the first two carriages were snapped to pieces. The first 'carriage did not capsize, hut it also wont across the line, the front platform striking the cab of the engine with great violence. Mr. D. Dunbar, (farmer, Waikonaiti) who was standing on this platform, fell between it and the engine, and so sustained serious injuries to his legs This carriage was loft a complete wreck. The second carriage was also very materially damaged, its *oro part broken in collision with the second, and its windows shattered. The other two carriages and the van left tho line, but were not damaged, and beyond a a little rough jolting nothing unusual was experienced by their occupants. Those who saw the wreck agreed that the escape of tho passengers was astounding. When the engine came to a standstill, one opening to the cab was closed by the waggon which fell to the right of it, and the other was partly

closed by the bank. The engineer and fireman managed to jump through the aperture that was left, and to got in safety to the bank on the left-hand side. Their escape was most surprising. They can themselves give no very clear account of it. Tho collision of the carriage with the engine drove a portion of tbe back part of tho cab almost to the furnace door. The other carriages which were damaged in the manner described doubled across the line, so that the train closed up almost in the manner of a concertina, and did not telescope as would have been the case in a collision on a straight line. Those only who were in the two front carriages wore injured, and of these only two at all seriously. Mr. Dunbar was found jamhed between tho engine and the front of the first carriage, and he could not be extricated till some of the ironwork of the engine-cab had been cut away. On being removed it was found that both his legs were severely injured, but as he had been to Dunedin for medicine for his father, who was not expected to live for more than a day or two, he insisted on being taken home, and he accordingly went on with the express to Waikonaiti. Mr. John Guy, who is employed in the Dunedin gopdssheds, received a nasty cut on the head and one or two severe bruises. He was conveyed to town by the first special train which left for Dunedin, and on arrival at the latter place he was conveyed to the hospital.and subsequently left for his home. Mrs Jane Findlayson (of Blueskin) and her son were bruised and cut,but not seriously, and Mrs. Proctor (also of Blueskin) suffered a good deal from the shock, while many other passengers sustained slight cuts and bruises, which were inflicted chiefly in making their escape from tho carriages. The accident could not have occurred in any place where the consequences were likely to be less serious, for either side of the line at the spot where the train left the rails there was a bank of clay several feet high. Had the train proceeded a few yards farther in the direction of the station the engine and carriages would have shot over the bridge into the Waitati River, and the consequences would then have been most calamitous. So far nothing which would suggest the cause of the accident has transpired, and it will probably remain a mystery. A stone placed on one of tho rads might have thrown the engine off the line, or it is suggested that some breakage in connection with the engine gear would have caused the accident. These, however, are only suppositions, and the latter, at all events, the officials think it highly improbable. A preliminary inquiry touching the cause of the accident will probably be held at an early date.'