NEARLY A DISASTER

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 69, 23 March 1933, Page 12

NEARLY A DISASTER

PASSENGERS' STOEIES

FORTUNATE ESCAPE

Although there was no suggestion of panic among the passengers, the travellers by ,the Limited express which left Auckland on Tuesday night consider themselves very fortunate to como out of the mishap with nothing but the realisation of the narrowest pbssiblo escape from a catastrophe. A wash-put at a culvert left a section

of the line unsupported. There was a drop of about twenty-five feet to tho river, which was estimated to bo about thirty feet deep. How the wholo train managed to get over this portion of the lino is a mystery to the passengers. Tho line sagged and buckled sensationally as tho train went across, but the momentum apparently carried the wholo train over. The engine and several carriages left the lino on the other side, but tho most serious danger had then been passed. The niishap occurred a few minutes after midnight when most of the passengers were dozing. They wero awakened. by the bumping, but the wholo anair was taken very calmly; indeed some of the passengers did "not even [rouble to get out of the train to investigate. The remainder of the night was spent; in the train, and early in the morning another train took the passengers on to Tauniarunui. Three Auckland and New Zealand representative cricketers, Messrs. G L Weir, H. G. Vivian, and P. E Wbiteaw, were on' the train on their way to Chnstchurch for the' cricket Test omorrow, and their experience is one th-f* th°y wIU not easily forget. We felt the bumps getting stronger and stronger, and then she rocked," Mr Vivian told a "Post" reporter today. "We thought we were over " he said. "You have only to see the spot to realise how lucky we were I never want to go through anythina like it again." ' s These three travellers said that when it reached the wash-out the train was gathering speed after slowing down to pick up a tablet. . It just got over and that was all. All the couplings broke and the engine left the rails on the other sidiv Anxious to got to "Wellington on their way to Christchurch. the cricketers spent-a worrying day in Tauniarunui yesterday, but it was not until about ■i o clock in the afternoon that they left in .■mother train for Ohakune. A slip between Manunui and Piriaka made it necessary to tranship oncn again, and they left Ohakune on the final stage of their eventful journey about 8 p.m. yesterday. Taumarunui was a desolate place yesterday, according to Mr. Weir. The recreation ground was silted Up like a rice field, and he confirmed the reports of houses being flooded and the occupants having narrow escapes. LIKE A SCENIC RAILWAY. "It is not possible to express the feelings which came over mo as tho train bumped over that bit of line," stated another passenger, Mr. A. Bradley, of Otago. "She went up and down like a scenic railway, and if it had not been for the bogie wheels on the engine forming a wedge we would all have been 'over. It is impossible to state just hpw near a catastrophe it -was. It was only the hand of ProH-idenee which saved us." Mr. Bradley also remarked upon the calmness .of tho passengers, saying that therfr was not the slightest suggestion of any panic.