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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 15 September 1880, Page 2

The inquest on the train disaster on the Wellington-Featherston line has ended in a verdict with which is embodied a recommendation that the Government should forthwith erect wind sheds on the exposed parts of the line. We are willing to admit that this Is one solution of the diiiieulty, but it is scarcely a. satisfactory one. Exposed and dangerous spot 3 are so numerous on this line that to cover them all with sheds would necessitate an alarming expenditure. Tiie question is, Can tho Colony afford to patch up this railway, which is one of the most unsatisfactory, as regards return, in the Colony? Whilst we are compelled to forego important works such ,-u a suitable railway station, and other public buildings, we are driven to the conclusion id cannot. This is one of the lines that should never have been constructed, and which pan not, by any process of management, be to pay anything like interest on the amount expended in its construction. It might be desirable to erect Bhed3 over the worst of the exposed spots, and to adopt other precautionary measures. There can be no doubt new that the accident would never have occurred but for the force of the wind. A wituesa indiscreetly volunteered information at the inquest to the eil'ect that the drivers were new men to the work, and that they had been drinkin <*• He also expressed an opinion that the wind was not the cause of the accident. But this man wc.3 afterwards compelled to retract the era.ve accusation against those in charge of tiie engine, and was ignominioiuly censured by the ; jury. Had he been able to persist in his statements, the jury would perhaps have been led away from the true cause of the xalaiiiity, which would have been a matter fur We are willing to admit that appearances favor the idea that, under more favorable cireuyLStances, the carriages, notwithstanding the forcft of the wind, by which stone* and pieces ,cf iron end timber were blown about like featluers, ,would not have left the line. Another and mow: .crediable witness says that the carriages wers lifted off the line, and that ait the carriage he wan in (the one farthest from the engine) fell over tiio embank|ment, it was blown into atoms. All this

points to the wind as the cause of the mishap, but it also indicates the probability that., had the , engine been drawing the carriages, instead of pushing them, it would not have occurred. When the Public Works policy was first started a circular was issued to contractors by the then Engineer-in-Chief that ballast trains containing workmen were not to be pushed in front of engines. There can be little doubt that the regulation was the result of exr>eri>'i'.ce which proved that the plan fornkkitn was fraught with danirer. Even on lines traversing plains it was disallowed. . In the light of this fact, it puzzles us to understand how it is that it should have been adopted in the caseof passenger trains traversingan alpine line, frequently verging on cliffs, and that, too, in a region of gales of terrible force. A return to this system, which has only been departed from, we believe, because of the difficulty of reversing the engine on the line in question, and the erection of wind-sheds at the most dangerous and exposed spots, would be the best way to cope with the difficulty.