THE LITTLE RIVER RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Kumara Times, Issue 2383, 18 April 1884, Page 2

THE LITTLE RIVER RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

The cause of the railway accident at Little River, Victoria, by which three persons were killed, is more fully described in papers to hand. It appears to rest entirely with Thomas Biddle, the Werribee station-master, who was absent from his post and delegated his duties to his daughter, who made a mistake. Biddle is organist of the church, and went to choir practice as usual, without leave. His daughter gave the staff to Kitchen, the driver of the goods train, authorising him to proceed, and at the same time telegraphed to Little River, the npxt station, where the passenger train was, that the line was clear, and accordingly the passenger train was sent on the single line, while the goods train was speeding on in the dark in the opposite direction on the same line. When Biddle returned to the station he inquired from Little River where the mail train was, and the answer came—“ Gone; sent line clear; train on the way,” Almost immediately after he got ihe news of the accident. The daughter was unable to explain why she sent the message that the line was clear, when she knew the goods train was between the two stations.

At the inquest at Geelong on the bodies of Thos. Cole Kitchen and Ellen Johnston, two of the victims of the terrible disaster, Best, the guard of the goods train, deposed that it was not at all unusual for the station masters to be absent when the goods train

passed through in the case of early morning trains, and he had frequently to pick up the staff from the platform, there being no person at the station. The Coroner, in summing up, commented on Biddle’s conduct in leaving his post, and in trusting the work to his daughter instead of to the porter, a paid servant of the department. Stress had been laid on the long hours from quarter to seven in the morning to ten at night, but he had received assistance when applied for. The jury returned a verdict which, in the Coroner’s opinion, amounted to one of manslaughter, and Biddle was committed for trial at the July assizes, bail being allowed.