RATANA DISASTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1938, Page 7

RATANA DISASTER

DAMAGE TO NOTICE BOARD CONSIDERED ACCIDENTAL WANGANUI, April 4. Investigations made by Wanganui detectives have established that the damage to the speed-restriction board placed near the Ratana cutting where the railway disaster occurred early on the morning of March 26 was not wilful as was at first supposed. Following extensive inquiries the police are now of the opinion that the board warning locomotive drivers to reduce speed to six miles an hour before negotiating the cutting was broken down by a swinging door of a wagon attached to a freight train which had passed the locality some time before the discovery was made.

Late on Friday night the driver of a freight train from Marton discovered on approaching the Ratana cutting that the speed-restriction board, which had been fixed to a wooden post about four feet from the track, had been broken down. The locality was immediately examined by the train crew and it was thought at first that the board had been deliberately damaged. The Wanganui police were informed and investigations were carried out by Detectives J. Murray and N. W. Bayliss, assisted by Constable G. Phillips. Measurements were taken and the door of an LA type wagon which had passed the locality earlier in the night was later examined. Bolts and angle iron of the door were found to correspond with marks on the damaged board, and it is believed that the door swung open after the train left Wanganui for Marton.

Men from the maintenance branch are now consolidating the track where the derailment occurred. Fresh ballast is being laid and the road bed strengthened to carry the normal weight of passing trains. Normally a speed restriction limiting all trains to 20 miles an hour applies to this section of track, but until repairs are completed a six-mile-an-hour limit will operate. All the damaged cars have been removed to the East Town workshops, where the wrecked locomotive, tender and other parts of the train are being held for examination by the board of inquiry set up under the Railways Act to investigate the disaster. All the rolling stock involved in the accident, including the last two cars and the van which wore undamaged are now assembled at East Town.