CROSSING SMASH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 August 1941, Page 4

CROSSING SMASH

TRAGEDY AT STRATFORD THREE PERSONS KILLED INSTANTLY. MOTOR CAR HIT BY TRAIN. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH. August 22. Hit by the New Plymouth-Wanganui express train at Stratford this afternoon. a motor-car was cut almost in two and its three occupants, an elderly couple and a young woman, were killed instantly. They were: John Browning, of Tariki Road, Inglewood. Caroline Agnes Browning, his wife. Rose Helen Jackson, aged 20, single, of Tariki.

The collision occurred as the train approached the Stratford station from the north. The Westinghouse brake gear of the locomotive was damaged by the impact and the car was carried bodily about. 300 yards before the train could be stopped by the hand brake. All three occupants were badly crushed, the body of Mr Browning being thrown into a ditch a few yards past the cattlestop, and that of Mrs Browning being carried a chain farther along the line. When the train was brought to a standstill Miss Jackson was on the wreckage caught against the locomotive.

The car was twisted and tangled almost beyond recognition and was freed only with great difficulty after about 45 minutes, when the train was able to continue.

Mr Browning was, till recently, a member of the Midhirst Dairy Company directorate and was a Jersey breeder of note for about 20 years. Miss Jackson was a daughter of Mr and Mrs J. Jackson, Tariki.