TRAIN WRECKING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3019, 6 April 1926, Page 3

TRAIN WRECKING.

THIRD ATTEMPT AT PALMERSTON. NO DAMAGE DONE.

The third attempt in less than a month to wreck a train, within three or four miles of Palmerston North, was made on Saturday night, when the Jate mixed train from Napier ran into an obstruction on a level crossing about a mile on the Whakaronga side of the municipal gasworks. The engine struck seven cattle-stop beams which had been torn up aud laid crosswise over the rails exactly in the same way as in the attempt at derailment perpetrated on the Auckland line near Bunny thorpe early on Saturday morning and at the Terrace End and Kelvin Grove crossings on the evening of March 8. In all cases the engine bogie wheels smashed and scattered the wood without leaving the track.

In each the escape from a grave accident has been fortunate, as the crossings afe ; all so situated to be sufficiently distant from the station to ensure the train travelling at a fair rate of speed. When the engine of the Napier train hit the obstruction on Saturday night it lifted perceptibly as the bogie wheels crushed the beams, but it kept to the track. The passengers were unaware that anything unusual had happened, and did not feel tlxc shock. In connection with the Bunnytliorpe incident on Saturday niornig, it transpires that in addition to placing obstructions on the line and cutting the signal control wires, the train-wreckers severed a number of telephone wires running alongside the railroad. The police are continuing their investigations.