Railway accidents in Tasmania

On 29 June 1886 at 10:27pm, a special excursion train on the Main Line returning with visitors that attended the opening ceremony of the Fingal Railway ran off the rails while turning the six chain curves between Campania and Brighton. Train driver John Bradshaw and fireman Joseph Rogers were killed when they were thrown from the engine and the tender landed upon them. Among the injured passengers were the Tasmanian Premier, Dr. James W. Agnew, the Attorney-General John S. Dodds, and the Treasurer William H. Burgess.[2]

On 22 July 1886, an express train on the Main Line from Launceston to Hobart overturned whilst crossing the viaduct at Bridgewater after the unsecured swing bridge opened. The accident resulted in the drowning deaths of fireman William Shaw and second class passenger Daniel Turner.[3]

On 16 May 1899 at 7:15am, the North-East Dundas tram engine boiler exploded in the Zeehan station yard killing engine driver David Biddelph and fireman Thomas Marra. The engine was completely wrecked and the first truck of the train smashed in the front. No passengers were hurt in the incident.[4]

Railway guard Stephen Kitchen Clarke.

On 29 March 1903, 34 year old Stephen Kitchen Clarke, railway guard on the 5pm train from Launceston to Deloraine, died at the Launceston General Hospital after being struck by the gate post at Mantack’s Crossing and knocked from the train on the Western Railway between Westbury and Exton the previous evening.[5]

On 15 February 1916, seven[6] passengers were killed and twenty nine seriously injured when the express from Launceston to Hobart, with 200 passengers on board, was derailed 3.2 km (2 miles) north of Campania, and 47 km (29 miles) from Hobart. The engine jumped the rails, and dragged after it the three front carriages. The carriage nearest the engine was smashed to pieces, while several others received injuries.

The accident occurred just before 4 o'clock.[7] The train was rounding a curve, but a fairly easy one, as compared to some of the curves higher up the line. According to the statements of passengers, the speed was not very great, and no one seems to have any idea how the accident occurred.[8]

On 23 January 1929, a 24 year old Bagdad man was killed and his father rendered unconscious when their motor-caravan collided with the Launceston evening service train at the Tea Tree Railway Station.[9]

On 1 January 1930 at 12:30pm, a 33 year old man, his 23 year old wife, and their four month old son were killed with four other people injured when the vehicle of a travelling pantomime company collided with a Launceston bound train at the Wivenhoe Railway Station level crossing.[10]

On 28 July 1931, a 45 year old Launceston man fell out from a carriage on the evening train from Hobart to Launceston at Western Junction. He was returning to Launceston after visiting friends at Evandale. He died from his injuries at the Launceston Public Hospital the following day.[11]

On 5 October 1931, a Launceston man of approximately 40 years of age collided with the evening passenger train from Launceston on his motorcycle at the Leith crossing near the bridge over the Forth river. He died from his injuries two days later.[12]

On 28 December 1934, a 12 year old girl was killed and nine others injured when a passenger train bound from Burnie to Wynyard crossed a culvert at Doctor’s Rocks that had been undermined by flood waters and it collapsed under the weight of the tender.[13]

On 12 January 1936, a man and a woman were killed when their motorcycle collided with a steam cammell car on its way from Burnie to Launceston at the Lemana Junction crossing. The couple were travelling towards Red Hills from Deloraine.[14]

On 31 October 1937 at approximately 12:35am, a brother and sister aged 25 and 19 years respectively received fatal injuries when their sedan car crashed into a stationary goods train from Launceston on the northern Conara level crossing after attending a social at Epping.[15]

On 7 April 1939 at 11:30am, a 62 year old man accompanied by a 32 year old man and his 23 year old wife were killed when their Chevrolet sedan car bound for Launceston collided violently with the southward-bound express at a level crossing at Woodbury. A 29 year old female passenger escaped with minor injuries.[16]

On 8 December 1939, a 28 year old Mole Creek man was killed when his motorcycle he was riding from Deloraine to Mole Creek crashed into a goods train at the Lemana Junction station crossing. He died from his injuries the following day.[17]

On 4 October 1943 at 1:45pm, the 66 year old driver of a grocer’s van was killed instantly when his van was struck by a goods train travelling north to Tunbridge at a Woodbury crossing.[18]

On 10 February 1944 at approximately 4:15pm, a soldier was killed and two others wounded on a level crossing at Pontville when a military motor lorry was struck by a goods train on its way from Apsley to Hobart.[19]

On 20 July 1945 at 9:50am, a 38 year old man died from injuries received when his single-seater car collided with a Launceston-bound goods train at the Gilbert Street level crossing in Latrobe.[20]

On 26 December 1945, a 20 year old man from Western Creek was killed when his motorcycle collided with a train at the level crossing near Ballahoo.[21]

On 16 March 1946 at 9:15am, a goods train hauling twenty trucks of coal and timber crashed through an embankment weakened by flooding 16 km (10 miles) east of Avoca killing the 41 year old driver from Conara. The engine toppled on its right side pinning the driver down by the reversing lever. The fireman and three passengers escaped without injury. Fifteen trucks came to rest telescoped together in the culvert.[22]

On 11 February 1948, a man was killed when his car was struck at a West Wynyard crossing by a Garrett engine travelling from Stanley to Wynyard.[23]

On 14 May 1949 at 1pm, a man in a car was struck by a train at the Elwick level crossing by a train travelling to the Elwick Racecourse. The car door was opened by the impact of the crash causing the man to be thrown out where he possibly struck a fence post. He died later that afternoon in the Royal Hobart Hospital.[24]

On 26 September 1951, a 78 year old man from Sulphur Creek and his 26 year old granddaughter from Latrobe were killed when the car in which they were travelling in the direction of Devonport struck a diesel rail-car at the Reibey Street crossing in Ulverstone.[25]

On 27 October 1951, a train driver and fireman were killed when the leading diesel electric locomotive of a heavily-laden freight train travelling between Hobart and Launceston left the track and plunged over an embankment near Colebrook taking the second locomotive and more than twenty trucks with it. Three passengers and the guard escaped from the wreck with only minor injuries.[26]

On 10 September 1954, a 39 year old man from Bicheno and his 13 year old daughter were killed with three others wounded when their car was struck and dragged by a diesel locomotive at a Campbell Town level crossing.[27]

On 10 May 1958 shortly before 10:30am, a 22 year old part-time taxi driver from Montello was killed as a result of his taxi colliding with a diesel goods train at the Smith Street railway crossing near the south-east corner of the Wivenhoe Showgrounds. The car had turned off the Bass Highway and was being driven up Smith Street at the time of the accident.[28]

On 25 October 1961, a 25 year old man was killed as a result of his car being struck by a train in Glenorchy.[29]

On 18 December 1967, a 27 year old man was killed at the Hoblers Bridge Road railway level crossing in Launceston after the negligently driven vehicle he was a passenger in collided with a diesel electric locomotive travelling towards Launceston.[30]

On 26 January 1970, at Hoblers Bridge Crossing, Launceston. One fatality. One seriously injured.

On 14 May 1970, a 14 year old boy died of injuries received and sustained while leaning from the carriage of a train and was struck by a steel bridge pylon whilst the train was in progress at Austins Ferry.[31]

On 11 February 1971, a 47 year old woman from Deloraine died after the vehicle she was being driven in by her husband came into collision with a train at the Hagley-Westbury railway crossing on the Bass Highway.[32]

On 25 January 1972 at approximately 5:30am, a 24 year old man from Wynyard was killed when the vehicle he was negligently driving at excessive speed ran into the trailing or second engine of a shunting goods train on the level crossing in Goldie Street, Wynyard.[33]

On 16 August 1973 at approximately 7:30pm, a 33 year old man from Wivenhoe was killed when his car collided with the engine of a Tasmanian Government Railway train consisting of three locomotives and approximately 400 tons of freight in Corcellis Street, Wivenhoe.[34]

On 1 December 1992. One fatality.[35]

On 4 September 2006, a 51 year old Pacific National employee was killed when a wagon he was inspecting was shunted from the other end and pinned him. The freight company Pacific National admitted that it failed to provide a safe work system when the man died at its East Tamar maintenance depot railyards.[36]

On 26 September 2010, a teenage boy was killed when his all-terrain vehicle collided with a train on a private road. The boy failed to stop at a stop sign on a private driveway and rode into the path of a train carrying cement at Spreyton, just south of Devonport. He was thrown under the train and died instantly.[37]

On 5 May 2012 at approximately 1:30pm, a 68 year old man was killed instantly when he drove onto the level crossing over Wilmores Lane near Longford and was hit by a train.[38]

The Coal Mine Creek rail accident, 1877.

On 24 April 1877, the ordinary train was travelling on the Main Line from Launceston to Hobart Town when a defective rail gave way under the engine while crossing an embankment known as the Coal Mine Creek between Jerusalem and Flat Top Tunnel. The engine fell over the embankment into the gully below dragging several trucks with it. The engine driver and fireman fell under the engine and were seriously injured. There were fifteen passengers on the train at the time with only one of them severely hurt. All of the passenger carriages remained on the rails. This was the worst accident to occur since the line was opened.[39]

On 30 September 1893, a passenger train with 60 people on board derailed due to sabotage on the Horseshoe Bridge near Brighton Junction station. The saboteur(s) were never identified.[40]

On 15 February 1940 at 4:20am, a goods train travelling from Hobart to Launceston derailed after being lifted from the rails by a metal fragment dropped between the main and guard rails on top of a bolt that joined the two. The accident occurred at Walter’s Siding, 0.80 km (0.5 miles) on the Hobart side of Powranna Station. The engine slewed off the permanent way, plunged across a ditch and came to rest with its cow-catcher buried in an onion bed on the far side not twenty yards from a house occupied by three people. Eight wagons were smashed. The three members of the train crew escaped with only minor injuries but some of the livestock being transported were killed.[41]

On 5 December 1970, the west-bound train collided with a lorry at the River Road level crossing at Wivenhoe, near Burnie. The train pushed the lorry into the Emu River and the leading locomotive, X8, was left partially submerged in the river. The locomotive crew and truck driver suffered only minor injuries.

Derailment of southbound Tasman Limited between Evandale and Clarendon on the Main Line, 24 October 1977 (The Mercury photo).

On 24 October 1977, the south-bound train derailed on the Main Line near Clarendon. Poor track condition was blamed for the derailment. The ACS car and DA van both ended on their sides. Some crew and passengers were taken to hospital but there were no lasting injuries. This derailment happened at a critical time for the Tasman Limited when its future was uncertain.