RAIL TRAFFIC DISLOCATED

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 111, 1 August 1927, Page 1

RAIL TRAFFIC DISLOCATED

BIG SLIP ON LINE AT KAIWARRA NO TRAINS FROM WELLINGTON TO-DAY A COMPLETE dislocation of Wellington’s northern suburban railway traffic, and a hold-up of the Main Trunk service has resulted from a big slip blocking the main line at Kaiwarra on Saturday night. There were no mails irom the South to-day.

TRAIN HITS SLIP NEAR WELLINGTON

TRUCKS TELESCOPED CHILDREN’S LUCKY ESCAPE (Special to THE SVN.I WELLINGTON, Sunday. WHEN approaching Wellington at 10 p.m. on Saturday a goods train of about 40 trucks crashed into a big slip on the line near the Kaiwarra viaduct. Several trucks were telescoped and twelve derailed. One, breaking loose, fell down the embankment on to a railway worker’s cottage, taking the side out of a room In which Mr. A. D. Standen’s two little girls were sleeping. The truck hit the end of the bed,

throwing the children out, and then toppled right over them. One of the children, aged seven, crawled out from underneath the truck, rubbing her eyes and wondering what had so rudely disturbed her slumbers. Both were unharmed. Another cottage was also shorn of a side, but no one was injured. The engine became stuck in the slip, the earth piling high in front of it. Some of the.trucks were smashed to matchwood and the line will probably take some time to clear. The permanent way is practically undamaged. There will be no express to Auckland to-night, but a train will leave Wellington for Auckland at 9.30 a.m. to-morrow. Mr. A. D. Standen, who was told of the slip by his son, rushed outside, knowing that a train was due to pass, but he was too late to warn the driver. The boy, who was looking at the slip through the window, was struck in the arm by flying glass, necessitating several stitches.

LINE ENDANGERED TRAIN MAY LEAVE AT 2 P.M. BUSES FOR PASSENGERS Press Association. WELLINGTON, To-day. The Railway Department’s hope of getting an express away North this morning proved false, it being found after the debris at the slip was cleared away and the hillside examined, that the top of the slip was still in a threatening condition. The department decided to run no risk and the men . are now enearth and rock from the danger spot. At first it was thought that the line would be safe by noon, but there is no prospect of this, and it is proposed gaged on the hillside, throwing down to get two expresses away, one about two o’clock. Trains are running on the Manawatu line as far as Ngaio, passengers to Wellington being met at Ngaio by buses. The whole of the northern suburban traffic is dislocated, and there is a heavy motor service traffic to Johnsonville and places further North passing through Ngahauranga Gorge. Traffic to Ngaio and Khandallah, by Ngaio Gorge, is also very heavy.