Express Engine Capsizes

Evening Star, Issue 22458, 1 October 1936, Page 7

Express Engine Capsizes

Miraculous Escape From Disaster

Packed Derailed Carriage Remains Upright

Passengers Felt Only Sudden Bump

After running 250 yards with one set of the front bogey wheels off the line, the engine of the first south-bound express —a W.A.B. weighing 76 tons—left the rails at the points directly opposite the Evansdale railway station yesterday afternoon, ploughed a trench in the gravel and clay 70 yards long and from two to three feet deep, and capsized against an embankment, with its nose buried deep in several tons of clay.

More miraculous than the escape from any injury of the driver, fireman, and road foreman who were travelling in the cab was the fact that although the front wheels of the following carriage were 16 inches off the rails, the car remained upright, and was only slightly damaged -when it came to a sudden stop, jammed against the rear of the derailed locomotive.

The holding of a buffer between tbe engine and the packed second class carriage saved a disaster, and the automatic application on every carriage wheel of the brakes when the coupling snapped as the engine rolled over brought the train to a rapid standstill. Had the buffer broken off instead of twisting, the engine would have capsized earlier and at a greater speed, and the following carriages would certainly have piled up on the wreck. The fear of the telescoping of the carriages when the engine tumbled over was uppermost in the minds of the driver (H. Stile) and the fireman (E. Ward), yet it is remarkable that some of the passengers did not realise that they were making other than a scheduled stop. Neither did they realise that a miracle had saved them from serious injury, or perhaps worse. Although the train crew and passengers escaped injury, the derailment was directly responsible for two postal employees being injured. The van in which they were traveling to Evansdale to collect the mails left the road at Mount Cargill, and the men suffered injuries which necessitated their removel to hospital.

AT FORTUNATE SPOT

. DANGEROUS EMBANKMENT GROSSED i REMARKABLE CALM W PASSENGERS DEPARTMENTS GWO ORGANISATION The sensational derailment—the first of an engine on the Oamaru-Dunedin line for many years—occurred at a most fortunate spot, right in the centre of a wide cutting on a leveL stretch. Less than 100yds in either direction the line runs over steep embankments,_ on which a derailment would have inevitably been attended with disastrous consequences. The heavy engine came to rest on its side at an angle of 45deg, but on the land side of the wreck the way is spacious, and permitted the Railway Department’s relief gangs to build, last night, a temporary track round the obstructing engine, which will not be lifted back on to the line till Sunday. The temporary line was in service before midnight. None of the passengers on the derailed express suffered the slightest illeffects, not even those in the first carriage, a “ smoker,” feeling worse than an unusual bump. “ There was not the slightest panic among the passengers, of whom five or six were women,” said a railway employee, who was travelling in the car, to a ‘ Star ’ - reporter at the scene of the accident before 125 passengers left in buses to continue their interrupted journey to Dunedin. “ I knew, from my railway experience, that there was something wrong when I felt the carriage bumping along the sleepers, but the jolt when the train came to a standstill was not unusually severe. Nobody cried out. The calm of the passengers was remarkable, even when they looked out and saw the engine lying on its side.” THE INITIAL DERAILING, The cause of {he derailment of the front set of bogey wheels which led to the capsize of the engine after a long run could not be ascertained by an inspection of the permanent way or the engine by railway engineers last evening. The engine was in excellent order, a fact that was commented upon by Mr W. J. Connelly, the road foreman, who was making a routine trip in the cab from Dunedin to Oamaru and back. The express, comprising the engine, seven carnages, and three vans, left Seacliff at 3.23, right on time, and coming down the long Warrington hill into Evansdale the driver reduced speed and applied the brakes. As the express came round the slight bend over the bridge above the road leading to Warrington, the brakes were released. Travelling at a speed of 25 miles an hour, the engine had almost reached the bridge high above the Evansdale Creek when both driver and fireman heard a noise like that of loose ballast on the permanent way striking the undercarriage and of gravel on the rails. The brakes were applied gently, but the noise suddenly ceased as the engine ran smoothly across the heavily iarrah-planked bridge on to the level run of 250yds through the Evansdale railway yard.

LURCH OFF LINE. As the train roared into the cutting, the men in control felt the engine lurch off the line and saw heavy pieces of timber from the points cover opposite the station platform flying high at the side of the engine. The Wostinghouse brakes were jammed on, but before the weight of the carriages and vans could be offset to bring the express to a standstill, the engine excavated a deep channel on the lefthand side of the line, piled the debris up in front of it, and capsized. Fireman AVard was on the off-side and he was thrown over, with the road foreman tumbling on top of him. As the engine toppled over the men in the cab were horrified to soe the following carriage leave the line with the sudden jerk and fully expected the train to pile up on top of the wrecked engine. In that dreadful few moments they

Had the bridge been of sleepers only, derailment into the creek would have been certain.

also had to face the danger of the pipes in the cab bursting and ejecting boiling water on them.

Luckily, their fears were misplaced, as the, carriage, although its front wheels were dragged 16in off the line, two being on the edge of the deep trench cut by the engine, remained vertical and came to rest with a jolt, with the iron work of the collapsible platform jammed hard against the back of the tender. ■ CREW ESCAPE UNHURT. It was with renewed relief that the passengers in the smoking carriage saw the three train officials clamber out of the cab and drop to the ground safe and unhurt. The only marks on the men who had been so close to death were an abrasion on one of Fireman Ward’s fingers and a well-oiled suit worn by Road Foreman Connelly, over whom a can of oil had been hurled. Of rhe conduct of the passengers immediately after they realised their narrow escape from dangei, the railway men had the highest pva;se. “ They were marvellous,” said Guard W Caskie, who had his first experience yesterday of a railway accident; after 33 years in the service. “ They look things so calmly, and not even those who might have been anxious to reach Dunedbi in a hurry madi a complaint.” POINTS COMPLETE DERAILMENT. Scoring on the line proves that the bogey wheels left tho rails at a point exactly 9yds beyond tiie creek bridge, at the' spot where the driver and fireman first noticed the noise, which was not noticeable as the engine raced across the bridge, the derailed wheels then running along the thick, smooth planks. By the time the yard was reached the express had regained a speed of 25 miles an hour. Disaster was imminent when the bogey wheels struck the points. The speeding engine jumped the rails, part of it striking the points lever and ripping it off, and the wheels sawing through the jarrah timber cover of the points mechanise, BIG TRENCH CUT. Then the men in control had to act quickly to prevent a catastrophe. The brakes were applied, but nothing could have then righted the engine. The wheels dug into the soft clay and gravel, and as the engine tilted over on its drunken run, it settled deeper into the channel being speedily cut. A great ditch, 60yds long, 3yis wide, and from 2ft to 3ft deep, was scooped out by the engine. For a distance of 40yds the sleepers were slewed out of position, and the line was shifted 9in out of alignment towards the railway station side. With its nose embedded in a pile of clay and gravel, 12ft high and 12ft deep, almost at the end of the clay cutting, the engine capsized, fortunately snapping off the coupling with the first which travelled for several yards with its front wheels 16in off the line, and applying the Westinghouse brakes. The heavy bumper at the rear of the engine held the immense weight of the following cars, but it was twisted shapelessly.

That the bumper held was remarkable, according to railway officials, who stated that if it had broken they could have only pictured the scene of disaster to the passengers in the first carriage, which was kept upright by the bumper. The clean snapping of the coupling when the engine rolled over automatically applied the Westinghouse brakes throughout the train’s length, and as the train was then well checked the stoppage was effected rapidly and without any jarring.

SPLENDID ORGANISATION. The derailment blocked the line completely. Immediately after the accident a telephone ring from the Evansdale station was made to headquarters in Dunedin, and a remarkably fine piece of organisation and co-ordination resulted in buses—three Railways Road Service and two City Corporation vehicles—being despatched to Evansdale, she last leaving there for the city no more than an hour and aquarter after the derailment with the last of the passengers. A special tram left Dunedin on their arrival for Invercargill. The district traffic manager (Mr H. L. Gibson) was on the scene superintending the transportation of the passengers, and an inspection by the railway engineer (Mr P. H. Morey) quickly resulted in repair gangs arriving from points between Seacliff and Port Chalmers.

A relief engine was despatched from Palmerston, and hauled sis cars and three vans, from which most of the mails and all luggage had been removed by vans sent from Dunedin, back to Warrington at 6.5 o’clock. By the time the breakdown train arrived at Evansdale the gangs had broken the rails and cut a track for the deviation round the wreck. Working with the light of oil flares and up to their knees in water in the ditch cut by the engine, which had been flooded by the release of water from the tank, another gang succeeded in getting the partially derailed carriage back on to the rails with the aid of a locomotive, after packing had been placed under the rails and wheels.

As Mr Gibson generously remarked, the railway gangs can always be depended on to rise to the occasion, but, although the men worked with great will in the darkness, they were unable to complete the construction of the temporary line deviation in time for the second express from Christchurch to pass about 8.15. After five and a-half hours of strenuous work, the deviation was completed and at 11 o’clock the all-clear signal was given to the traffic department. Throughout the_' night, trains were running over the lino past the derailed engine, clearing the traffic which had accumulated during the seven hours’ break, and this morning all services were running normally. Every section of the department is entitled to commendation for the manner in which it rose to the emergency. Such a big blockage on a main line was most expeditiously circumvented. POSTAL VAN LEAVES ROAD. Three vans were sent from the Dunedin Post Office within half an hour of the derailment to bring the mails, which are usually heavy on the Wednesday’s express, to the city. When one was negotiating a corner on the city side of the Mount Cargill Post Office it left the road, turned over twice down an embankment, and came to rest on its wheels. Three of the occupants were injured. William Winray, superintendent _of the mails branch, received concussion and head abrasions, and a postal employee, Robert M'Connell, a single man aged 26 years, residing at 150 Main South, road, had his left leg broken. The third occupant received only slight injuries. Winray and M'Connell were picked up by passing motorists and

taken to the Dunedin Hospital, where they were admitted at 5.5. The van was brought safely back to the road. Despite this accident and the loss of a van, the Postal Department did excellent work under stress, two vans being heavily loaded with mail before the train vans and carriages were hauled back to Warrington. PRAISE FOR DEPARMENT, “ All that we felt was a couple of jolts caused by the quick application of the brakes,” said Mr John Farrell, the manager for the tenor, Richard Crooks. “ The men on the engine must have got out very quickly, because, when I saw it lying comfortably on the bank, it was spitting out steam very generously, and had the driver and the fireman not got clear quickly they must have been badly scalded. We were all lucky that the engine decided to leave the rails when it did, as I am sure that had it not rested on the bank it would have dragged at least some of the car-

A superficial examination of the engine last night revealed no substantial damage. The first carriage was only slightly damaged. The steel work of the folding platform was forced back against the body, which was damaged in the left corner, and the couplings will have to be replaced. From the point of view of repairs, the department can count a very lucky escape.

riages over with it. All the passengers accepted the situation philosophically, the only ones who had any worries being those who were booked for Invercargill. However, transport was quickly arranged for them. More than a passing word of praise is due to the railway officials. The Dunedin traffic manager was quickly on the scene, and in a short time many workmen were ready to start on the deviation. In less than an hour five buses were at Evansdalc, and tho passengers suffered no inconvenience excepting a delay in arriving at their destination. This experience supports my long-held view that for efficiency the New Zealand railway staff cannot be excelled.”