A TRAM SMASH.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1920, Page 4

A TRAM SMASH.

THREE MEN KILLED. SHOCKING WELLINGTON ACCIDENT CAR OUT OF CONTROL. By Telegraph.—Press Association.

Wellington, Last Night. A shocking tram accident occurred on Saturday evening at the corner of Brougham and Pirie Streets, resulting in three men being killed and several others injured, more or less seriously.

It is assumed that a motorman named Small must have lost control when his car left the Kilbirnie Tunnel bound citywards, for it bolted down a steep grade and left the rails, shortly before reaching a bend. It crashed through a fence and burst a way half into a motor shed, turning over on its near side.

The crash of the impact, the shrieks of the imprisoned passengers, and the cries of tho injured could be heard for a considerable distance, and very soon plenty of assistance was available. The front part of the car was badly wrecked. The motorman was found hanging OT«r the switches with his neck broken.

A woman passenger says she noticed the motorman leaning' forward over the switches as the car rushed down-hill, the suggestion made being that he lost consciousness. The conductor Bays he applied the hand brake at the back of the car when no notice was taken of the emergency bell, but it had no effect. The names of those killed are:— Joseph Small, the motorman. James Alfred McEwan, 44 yeaxi o? age, a carpenter by trade, recently from Pahiatua, a passenger. James Evans, a clerk, at fiase Records, a by-stander.

The injured include Erica Evans, a daughter of the last named, a girl ten years of age, suffering from oats on the head, and the conduotor, Frederick Quayle, who sustained a cut on tit» back.