‘Horrifying’ derailment leaves two dead
MELBOURNE: Train passengers have spoken of the chaos and their terror when the Sydney to Melbourne XPT derailed.
The diesel locomotive and five carriages came off the tracks near Wallan Station, 45km north of Melbourne, on Thursday night.
Two people were killed — the driver, a 54yearold man from the ACT, and the pilot of the train, a 49yearold woman from Castlemaine in
Victoria. Both were in the driver’s carriage.
A Sydney man described the accident as ‘‘horrifying’’.
‘‘You just hang on for grim death. You’re being thrown around, the thing’s going along tilting over and all you can look out the window and just see dirt and debris and stuff flying up past the windows and the track itself is just twisted and bent,’’ the man said.
‘‘It probably went about 150m before it stopped. There were carriages going sideways
— pretty horrifying.’’
James Ashburner, of Canberra, said he heard a ‘‘strange grinding sound’’ before the accident.
‘‘I was thrown about in my seat, stuff went flying and a bit of yelling. We came to a halt and realised vaguely that we had derailed.’’
After the crash, he stood up and realised he could escape the carriage.
‘‘The train was a mess, the carriages at all manner of odd angles and rather confused people standing on the tracks which is not a good place to stand,’’ he said
Passenger Leyon Gray said the train derailed minutes after taking off again after sitting stationary on the tracks.
‘‘They [staff] said we could be there for half an hour because the signals were malfunctioning,’’ he said.
‘‘And the train got going and we were probably doing 80 or 90kmh.
‘‘Next thing we were thrown out of our seats.’’