AN ENGINE-DRIVER'S RESPONSIBILITIES.

Taihape Daily Times, 13 June 1919, Page 5

AN ENGINE-DRIVER'S RESPONSIBILITIES.

Long periods» between disastrous accidents have helped along a feeling Of indifference; but it takes only one fatal \\'re('k such as the recent Main Trunk (lisaster to bring the travelling -public to the realisation that the ringl“e‘dl'iVol"s brain is the only one fllillg‘ tllut. stands‘ between them and almost certain death, writes J. Hickey (Knponga) to the Hawera Still.‘ I have been on the engine of a suburban train that was swifcliocl in on top 9f a stationary mail train, the suburban fl'ain being pulled up within a few Yzirds ‘>ol7 the mail train. I have been on the engine of the .-~and night (—‘XDl'esS- when We ran from Mangaweka to l’Vellillgtou without the assistance Of the VVE-stinghouse brake, it having failed through no fault of the engine<ll'iVer. I ~bl-ought :1 heavy ]nlX(’d goods and passenger train to :1 stop within :1 few yards of a set of points near Raurimu that had been ‘jammed Open by a piece of chain that had been dragged at the side of a "truck of the previous down train. These are just a few of the incidents that alinost every engine-driver on our railways can relate. and about whch the pub. lie knoiws nothing]