The second and third carriages telescoped into each other. Nurses Blanche Kelly and Christina Gordon were inside the left carriage. Photo / Auckland Weekly News
The second and third carriages telescoped into each other. Nurses Blanche Kelly and Christina Gordon were inside the left carriage. Photo / Auckland Weekly News
July marks 100 years since the Ongarue Railway Disaster, which claimed 17 lives. Stanley Fraser revisits New Zealand’s third-largest railway accident.
The Main Trunk Line was significant in the development of the King Country and has helped shape the Ruapehu region as we know it today. One tragic event to occur is the Ongarue Railway Disaster, which claimed 17 lives in 1923.
The weather had been playing havoc along the line on the days leading up to July 6, 1923 due to a number of slips, blockages and subsidence. Things were not going to plan for the Auckland to Wellington Express, which had been delayed in the Waikato.
No one could comprehend what would occur to the ill-fated train as it steamed south in the early hours of the morning.
There were a range of passengers on board including the New Zealand Māori rugby team, a drama company, a doctor, nurses, farmers, war veterans, boxers and an opera singer.
In a stroke of luck, the New Zealand Māori team had been reallocated to the centre of the train, to a first-class carriage, instead of behind the engine.
All seemed well as the express passed through Ongarue Station, north of Taumarunui, at 5.50am.
By now the horrid weather had subsided, but within 90 seconds all would change. As the train turned a sharp corner, the driver saw a slip seconds before the engine ploughed into it, smashing into a large boulder in the middle of the line.
The train’s fireman was extensively scalded by steam escaping from a burst pipe.
The postal van directly behind the engine was tilted to one side.
The following passenger carriages were worse for wear. The first and second carriages behind the engine telescoped inside each other in a mix of splinters, iron and limbs. Gas from the lamps inside a carriage ignited.
Luckily, one man hurled mud onto the fire and another section of the slip came down which extinguished the fire.
The rescue
Promptly, the train’s sleeping car attendant was sent back to Ongarue to raise the alarm, while other passengers went to help the trapped and injured.
The Leviens’ home, the closest to the train, was turned into a makeshift hospital along with Mrs Dunne’s boarding house.
Workers from Ellis and Burnand’s Mill came to the rescue with saws, timber jacks and crowbars to help remove those stuck. The dead were laid on pillows on the side of the track.
At Taumarunui Station, members of the public gathered to assist in any way they could. At 6.36am a relief train departed Taumarunui with an array of urgent medical supplies and staff from Taumarunui Hospital. A reporter stated, “The people of Taumarunui rose magnificently to the dire occasion. No one could have done more.”
The disaster claimed a total of 17 lives. The dead included Mrs McDonald, who was travelling to visit her ill brother at Taumarunui Hospital; an Auckland boxer, who would never make it to Taumarunui to compete in a competition the following day; and a man who recently moved to New Zealand and was travelling to meet his wife as she was arriving in Wellington that same day.
A railway worker clearing the obstruction also died at the scene from natural causes.
The 29 people injured were taken to Taumarunui Hospital.
The hospitalised included Mr Herbert Leach from nearby Matiere. Two nurses travelling together on holiday were also hospitalised, Blanche Kelly of Spotswood near Cheviot and Christina Gordon of Ohakune.
They were found by the rugby players, trapped in their seats in the second passenger carriage. Although unable to assist the victims themselves, the pair advised the volunteers with their medical knowledge to help the injured.
The impact of the disaster
New Zealand went into mourning. Parliament adjourned and all parties united in sympathy for the victims and expressed their support to the railway staff. The Governor-General, Lord Jellicoe, expressed his deepest sadness on hearing of the lamentable loss of life.
At the time of the accident, public safety on the railways was seen as being of great importance. The fact that the Ongarue slip was the fourth to block the line in two days did give cause to question the stability of the cuttings along the line. The press commented on the similarity to the Mataroa accident caused by a slip in 1918.
Stanley Fraser holding a portrait of his great-grandmother, nurse Blanche Kelly. Kelly married Christina Gordon’s brother Lesley Gordon in Ohakune in 1924. Christina Gordon married Tony Smith, son of Waimarino MP RW Smith in 1925.
The board of inquiry suggested if it were not for the large boulders on the track, the accident would not have been as severe. Dr Bathgate, a passenger on board, voiced his concerns about the lack of medical supplies aboard the train. Due to the disaster, carriages would be reinforced, and the gas lighting would eventually be replaced.
This led to the railway conducting regular inspections with jiggers along the line. The inspectors were responsible for an average of six miles (9.6km) of track. The Railway Department was ultimately found to have “no control, and [was] entirely exonerated … from any suggestion of negligence”.
It is great that the events of the fateful morning 100 years ago, which had almost faded into the abyss of time, have finally been remembered and commemorated with a new memorial at Ongarue.
Stanley Fraser is the great-grandson of Blanche Kelly, lives in Ohakune and has a keen interest in the history of the region. He is on the joint council of the Whanganui Regional Museum.
