TOKO LIME ACCIDENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 24, 11 January 1912, Page 5

TOKO LIME ACCIDENT.

a A TEMPORARY SIDING MADE EXPEDITIOUSLY.

ENGINE REMAINS UNSHIFTED

“Great things from little causes spring”; if a stray horse had not taken into its head to leave the road and make a bad jump across a cattle stop, there would have been no derailed ballast train yesterday, no shifting of forty yards of railway track a clear live feet, no dead horse, or for that matter, no story. Every morning at live o’clock the engine of the Public Works Department, quite a decent one, leaves the Skinner Road gravel, pit for a point some twenty-seven miles beyond Toko. It is said, by some who know, that two horses are in the habit of meeting x that train every morning. There’s nothing much else to at Toko, and doubtless they did as they saw others do. Yesterday morning the engine, behind it ten trucks and a van, left the pit as usual. Joe Tartilini was driver, Jack (“Barney”) Davidson, his fireman, and the guard was William Holloway, of the Government Railways Department. The horses, both line animals, were as usual at the Toko Station. They cantered along the road that runs parallel to the line, and the driver shut off steam; they appeared to be . running straight, or he would have put on the brakes. Then suddenly one of the horses jumped across a cattle stop at the crossing, and the other followed. Even then it .might have cleared the engine, but it caught between the logs and the engine crashed into it. Those who saw the.accident say that the engine might have been a ship in a stormy sea, for the way it leaped and staggered. Tile men very pluckily stuck to their engine* while there was a chance, of , it, keeping near the .rails. But the horse had by some means, got underneath the hack wheels' of thh ■engine)* and the “iron horse” went half : over the i■ cm battlement, > burningits nose'deep into .the clay. None, toy soon} the drivqr and fireman jumped clear, and' rolled ' down bn either side of the track into soft grass. If the engine had left the. track three yards nearer Stratford, engine L. 507 would have.disappeared from sight, for there w*as a straight drop close by of eleven or twelve feet, into a pool that was apparently capable of absorbing a dozen such engines. As it was, the engine looked as if it was going to topple over any moment, but tlie heavy trtteks behind held it from going' any further;•' • " "• ’'' ’ l,; It ! was late in the afternoon when a’' representative of “The Stratford Evening Post” arrived on the scene. The men, some thirty of them, including a relaying gang from Huiroa, were putting the finishing touches on a very smart piece of work. Part of the engine was on the track, and the line had to be shifted a clear five feet to let the Toko train pass at 2.30 p.m. With'some difficulty the trucks were separated from the engine, and the ballast used in the work of lay.ng a new track for the shifted rails. Considering that the track had to be moved in this manner for over fifty yards, it will be seen that the men had to do some work. However, by the time the train was due the lino was again in working order, and all the passengers saw of the damage was an engine in a very undignified position, a dead and mangled horse, and if they looked very closely much blood, skin, and hair. By four o’clock the horse, which strangely enough does not appear to belong to any one in the district, was given a decent burial in a “nice little hole in the ground,” and the Huiroa men mounted their jigger and left for the east.

The only problem that remains is to shift the engine, which does not appear to be seriously damaged, back to the line. It weighs some twentyseven tons, but there is a big crane at Stratford station which should be just about able to do the job. The track, of course, will bo levered into its old position, as soon as the coast is clear. It is rumoured that Toko residents are intending to erect a suitable monument over the body of the animal that provided the distirct with a sensational accident, and food for reflection and animated conversation that bids fair to last for many a long month.