ENGINE OVERTURNS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1943, Page 3

ENGINE OVERTURNS

AFTER RUNNING INTO SLIP NEAR OKAHUKURA. EIGHT TRUCKS LEAVE LINE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WANGANUI, May 16. The driver and the fireman of a mixed train which left Taumarunui for Stratford last evening had a fortunate escape from injury when a heavy X class locomotive weighing 90 tons ran into a slip shortly after 8 o’clock and overturned. Eight wagons following the engine were derailed, but two passenger cars and the van remained on the track. Nobody was injured. The mishap occurred between Niho Niho and Toi Toi, two small flag stations 16 miles from Okahukura, on the Stratford main trunk. It is not expected to have the line clear till early tomorrow. Heavy rain fell in the district yesterday and the slip had come down without warning from a high papa face near a cutting. In this locality the track winds through difficult mountain country, with hills on one side and a stream on the other. Heavy boulders came down with the debris from the hillside, thus causing the engine to overturn. Two 40-ton breakdown cranes, one from Auckland and the other from Wellington, were rushed through to the scene of the derailment early this morning, with a view to clearing the wreckage from both ends simultaneously.