SHEEP TRAIN PILES UP IN STATION YARD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4416, 18 February 1930, Page 3

SHEEP TRAIN PILES UP IN STATION YARD.

BRAKES FAIL TO HOLD TRUCKS ON INCLINE.

The worst railway smash in the history of the Ohakune-Raetihi branch line occurred at 2.55 a.m. on Saturday, when 15 trucks, containing about 900 sheep, and an empty guard’s van, broke away eight miles from Raetihi and running back, down the grades, raced into Raetihi at 80 miles an hour and piled in wreckage over the stanchion post or stop-block in the station yard. It is estimated that 387 sheep were killed, although a few of this number may have- been thrown clear and strayed away.

The train was the fifth of five specials carrying sheep from the Raetihi ewe fair and left Raetihi at 11.15 p.m. on Friday. All went well until the train was ascending a steep grade a mile from Ohakune junction, when slippery rails, caused by rain, gave trouble in haulage, during which a chain couplingbroke.

The .brakes were applied to 15 trucks and the guard’s van, while the engine and the other 12 trucks which comprised the train went on to Ohakune.

The guard, Mr. J. MeAlphy, walked back down the line to place warning detonators, as required b,y the departmental regulations. The detonators had been placed and the guard was .walking back up the line when he met the trucks and the empty van coming towards him at a pace too great for him to get aboard to gain control. The trucks continued on the down grade for three and a-haif miles, passed over about half a mile of level line, then ascended a steep grade of one in 48, which contains a left and right hand curve, each of 27 chains and reached the down grade, two miles from Raetihi station.

By the time Raetihi was reached, (lie trucks had gained a terrific speed and only the weight of the guard’s van (35 tons) was considered to have kept the runaway to the lines.

•Wifch a resounding crash, the van hit the stop-block at the end of the line in the station yards and plunged down over an embankment to a swamp. The van ploughed its way through the swamp for half a chain and came to rest with its wheels

I.nried but without capsizing. Elovon trucks piled up behind the van, being smashed to matchwood and the following two trucks were blocked by the heap of debris and derailed, being damaged but not beyond repair. The remaining two I Micks at the back of the rake remained on the rails and were not damaged. To-day the work of clearing up the litter is in progress. Instructions have been given by the Department for the burial of the sheep at l/(> a head. The Department, it is reported, has agreed to make good the loss, but just what amount is involved it is impossible to say yet. The latest- estimate is that 387 sheep were actually killed, but it is probable that another 100 niiiv die as a result of injuries.