RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1256, 23 October 1884, Page 1

RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

A railway accident took place on tho Auckland line on the 14th instant. A shunting engine was standing taking in coal, the driver being engaged in oiling the wheels, and the fireman on the engine, when a truck that iWas being shunted struck the engine rather violently, and caused the regulator to fall down, letting steam into the cylinders. The engine started off, but had not got many yards before the fireman became alarmed and jumped off, leaving the engine going half speed and uncontrolled along the line towards the Domain tunnel. The engineer, whose name is Barnett, had been thrown against a water tank and Lad h\o fingers cut off. Great alarm was felt, as the Ouehunga train, with a large number of business men and children coming into town, had left Newton just about the time of the accident. Acol ision between this and the loose engine occurred in the tunnel. Soon after the driver of the Onehunga train turned the bend in the tunnel lie saw the other engine from the opposite direction. He blew his whistle as hard as he could, but as the other showed no decrease in spved he concluded that there was something wrong, and put on the break. The greatest excitement prevailed among the passengers on the train. The guard told them to hold on and lie down, but the shock did not prove so great as was expected. The passengers were thrown about in every direction, but none were hurt. The front of the Onehunga engine was broken, and the cowcatcher carried away. Neither the carriages nor the engines were thrown oft' the line. A party of gangers arrived, hut their services were not needed, and both engines came safely into town. The escape of the passengers was miraculous, as if the loose engine had been two minutes earlier the collision would have occurred near the bend, and the driver of the passenger train could not have seen it in time to slow down. If two minutes later, the train would have been going full epeed down the steep Parnell incline, coming up which had exhausted the power of the loose engine and reduced its momentum.