ROTORUA TRAIN FATALITY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8537, 18 September 1907, Page 6

ROTORUA TRAIN FATALITY.

JUDGE KETTLE'S REPORT. (By Telegraph—Parliamentary Correspondent) . WELLINGTON, September 17. The report of Judge Kettle on the Rotorua train fatality was laid on the table of the House this afternoon.

Judge Kettle finds that "immedi- i ately after uncoupling the engine from the tram, one of the enginedrivers (Taylor) put down the only three truck hand-brakes next to the front van, and engine-driver Coooer went into the van at the head of'the train and applied the handbrake. Having done this, they returned to their engine and instructed the firemen to give the engines a little steam and run them slowly along the line while they walked alongside to observe the movements of the machinery, etc. This was accordingly done, and when they had proceeded some fifty or sixty yards they saw the train 'moving down the incline. They at once got on the engines, and went in pursuit, but before they could overtake the train, it gathered speed and rushed down the incline past Ngatira, and finally left the rails as stated in the evidence. I am satisfied that in endeavouring to overtake and rescue the train the engine-driver? did all that could be reasonabl> expected of them. It is clear that when the engines left the train on the incline it was not sufficiently braked. Care was not taken before the engines" were detached, to apply a sufficient number of hand-brakes to prevent the possibility of the train breaking away. The condition of the brake-blocks on the vehicles, when examined after the accident, and the absence of any signs on the wheels of skidding, favours the inference that the blocks were not properly gripping the wheels when the train got away, and, further, that if the Westinghouse brake was properly applied by En-gine-driver Taylor before the engines were detached, and it v did not operate on the whole train, that it is not improbable that its failure to so operate was due to the fact that a cock at or near the head of the train had * been closed for some considerable time and that consequently the air in the tubes and reservoir on the vehicles had completely leaked out, and left the brakes on the train inoperative. At the time when the engines were detached, if tie guard had been consulted by the engine-drivers, and if a careful brake test had beon made by them before the engines we:e detached, all such omissions or defects, if they existed, would no doubt I have been immediately detected and remedied, ' and the train also thoroughly secured with handbrakes before the engines were detached."