Railway disaster: Lest we forget
As the centenary looms, there are moves to mark the site where 17 people were killed on an Auckland-to-Wellington overnight express. Paul Charman reports.
Aregional councillor has called for a long-forgotten railway disaster in the King Country to be officially commemorated.
When the Auckland-toWellington overnight express AB 748¯ploughed into a fresh landslip in Ongarue, on July 6, 1923, it killed 17 passengers and changed New Zealand history.
The incident set a then record of fatalities; transformed medical services at nearby Taumarunui and prompted the almost immediate modernisation of trains using the Main Trunk Line.
With the centenary of the disaster looming, Horizons Regional Councillor Weston Kirton wants to see the tragedy commemorated, with names of those who perished set into a monument near the crash site.
Kirton said the O¯ ngarue railway disaster, which took place about 20km north of Taumarunui, marked the first major loss of life in New Zealand railway history and it remains our third worst rail accident.
‘‘Though eclipsed later by other tragedies, this was an epic event in the history of our transportation network. Those who perished deserve to be remembered, in fact, it is a mystery to many of us that their names have not been recorded and memorialised before now.’’
Kirton has a personal reason for taking up the issue, as his grandfather was stationmaster at Taumarunui at the time of the crash. He has begun lobbying and writing to Government departments and politicians with a view to funding a monument at O¯ ngarue. And he wants an appropriate ceremony planned to mark the 100th anniversary.
‘‘The damage was done when AB748 struck a three-tonne boulder, thought to have fallen down the bank and into its path – along with many tonnes of soft pumice soil — just minutes before the train appeared.
‘‘The train was partially buried, three passenger carriages telescoped and acetylene gas cylinders -- which at the time powered lights in the carriages – ruptured and caught fire. The wreckage initially exploded into flames, though a second slide of papa quickly engulfed it, putting the fire out.’’
A relief train soon arrived to carry the dead and injured to Taumarunui but to reach those trapped inside, the roof and sides of the damaged carriages had to be sawn open.
As well as the dead, 28 of the 200 passengers were injured, some with burns, totally overwhelming Taumarunui’s old cottage hospital in Ward St.
As a result, the townspeople determined not to be caught out the same way in future, and began clamouring for a new hospital. Money was raised and the foundation stone for this was laid early the following year.
But as well as horrifying a public, for whom trains were the main means of inter-city transport, the disaster helped to drag the country’s rail technology out of the Victorian era and in the 20th Century.
Railways Minister Gordon Coats ordered that passenger carriages be strengthened to reduce the possibility of telescoping and he substantially increased the first aid equipment carried in guard’s vans.
More significantly, the disaster showed that converting passenger carriages from gas to electric lighting – a decision already approved in principle – deserved far higher priority.
Coats was determined to see the last of the potentially dangerous acetylene gas systems. By the end of that year all trains working the Main Trunk Line had been fitted with electric lighting sets.
Kirton’s call for the disaster to be commemorated has a firm supporter in Waimiha resident and local historian Audrey Walker.
Walker points out that O¯ ngarue is now a popular destination with cycle enthusiasts drawn to the Timber Trail, many of whom are keen to experience local history sites.
‘‘When you consider the extent of the impact on small King Country communities of the day, it seems obvious that this event should be commemorated in some significant way,’’ Walker said.
Coates looked into the cause of accident and concluded that the Railways Department was blameless. Heavy rain falling for some days before had, without doubt, caused it, went the official line.
‘‘Local Jessie Otto would not have entirely agreed, according to one local history of the incident,’’ Walker said.
‘‘She is said to have observed slips and boulders falling onto that part of the line over the preceding 20 winters. Jessie claimed that she had drawn this to the attention of
Public Works Department engineers and had even offered to donate a piece of land for a deviation, if it was needed.’’
However, some changes were made. Train drivers realised the fickle nature of the pumice soils along the that portion of the Main Trunk Line, and learnt to be more cautious in wet and wild conditions. And following the terrible loss of life in 1923, for many years a jigger patrolled the section of track in question before passenger trains went through.
One of the main reasons the fate of AB748 fell out of memory was that about 20 years later, (June 4, 1943) its death toll was surpassed in the so-called Hyde Railway Disaster, which claimed 21 lives.
This was caused when the Cromwell-Dunedin express derailed on a bend which its driver had apparently taken at too high a speed.
Then, on Christmas Eve, 1953, came the worst of them all. A total of 151 passengers died in the Tangiwai Disaster, which was caused by a massive lahar – comprising an estimated 2 million cubic metres of water ice and mud – from the crater of Mt Ruapehu.
The torrent of water and debris hit the railway bridge over the Whangaehu River, at Tangiwai, apparently just ahead of the arrival of the passenger train of nine carriages.
When the train moved onto the structure it buckled into the river.