CARS WRECKED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 270, 4 February 1928, Page 1

CARS WRECKED

ACCIDENT AT PUKEKOHE GUARD’S VAN SMASHED MAIN LINE DAMAGED The guard’s van was wrecked, and three trucks derailed, in an accident which happened at the Pukekohe railway station at 7.55 o’clock last evening. One of the trucks damaged the main line, and the Limited express, which was rapidly approaching, had to be stopped. This was done by means of the automatic signals. The Limited was delayed for 40 minutes while the track was repaired. She was an hour and a-half late in reaching Wellington this morning. Repair gangs left for the scene of the mishap last evening and another went out this morning. They will remove the guard’s van from the embankment over which it rolled, and also another truck which followed it down the incline. About 25 men are engaged on the work to-day. Apparently the accident was caused through the brakes not being applied to a rake of trucks which had been left standing in the yard. Twenty-two trucks, loaded with coal, weer the larger part of a goods train bound from Frankton Junction to Auckland. The front part, with the engine had been uncoupled, leaving the 22 trucks standing in the yard. Before anyone was aware of it the rake of trucks had started to move of its own accord and, gathering speed as it went, crashed over the concrete buffer at the end of the siding and carried it for 12 feet. The derailed trucks stopped the whole rake from going over the embankment. After the accident the van lay across the embankment, bottom uppermost, and two trucks hung over the line. The cost of repairing the damaged trucks will he fairly heavy.