KEY POINTS:
The northern Victorian town's churches will come together for a service of remembrance, healing and hope at Kerang's Uniting Church, starting at 2pm (4pm NZT) on Sunday.
The service will give the local community an opportunity to remember the 11 who died and their families, said Uniting Church minister Reverend Jeff Dart.
Emergency services personnel will light candles and the congregation will pray for the healing of victims who remained in hospital.
"The community can have somewhere to gather and try and reflect on this, and we want to try and help them so they can come through it," Rev Dart told AAP.
"I think people are still in a bit of shock, and it's a horrible thing to happen.
"It's not good to be famous for being infamous."
Gannawarra Shire Council mayor and Kerang resident Keith den Houting said the people of Kerang were doing well despite the tragedy.
"The community has been affected by it, that's for sure, and that will be so for quite some time," he said.
"But the town has not come to a stop. The shops are open, the traffic is flowing."
Those killed include Rose McMonnies, 17, and her father, Geoff McMonnies, of Robinvale. Another family member, Sharice McMonnies, 15, remains in the Royal Children's Hospital in a critical condition.
Also killed were a 32-year-old Wellington man, 79-year-old grandmother Jean Webb and a 13-year-old boy.
Mangled wreckage
Rescue workers were yesterday still cutting their way through the mangled wreckage of the Victorian train cut in two by a semi-trailer as anger mounted over the safety of the state's rail system.
Hampered by jagged steel and slowed by early fog, rescuers had by late yesterday taken 10 bodies from the shattered carriages - a scene likened by police to a bomb site. So far, 11 people are confirmed to have died.
A further 24, including the driver of the truck that collided with the train, were injured, 12 seriously, in the crash near the northwestern Victorian town of Kerang on Tuesday afternoon.
And as coronial, police and rail safety investigations were being set up, more horrific accounts of the crash were provided by survivors who will later be called to give evidence to inquiries that Victorian Acting Police Commissioner Noel Ashby said would have national implications.
Although investigators have declined to draw any conclusions, witnesses have told how a laden semi-trailer driven by Christiaan "Dutchie" Scholl struck the middle carriage after rounding a slight bend on the Murray highway. The truck, of Wangaratta, Victoria, firm Canny Carrying Co, veered off the road, struck a pole, and powered into the carriage, ripping it open and crushing passengers.
Brian Frichot of nearby Swan Hill, who was driving behind the truck, said he watched in horror as the crash became inevitable. "I knew just by looking at the truck that he wasn't going to stop," Frichot told ABC radio. He saw "bits of it flying everywhere, getting out as it was sliding down the tracks still, watching people jumping out of the back carriage".
Frichot ran to the shattered truck and a badly injured Scholl. "I dragged him out and sat on the side of the road for 25 minutes or so, then put him on a stretcher on the ambulance, then bolted down to the train ... and started helping people there." Frichot said the driver had kept apologising. "I remember him saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' I said, 'You'll be right, mate, hang in there."'
Passengers described injured victims covered in blood and dust, screaming and moaning. Lenley Fraser said she had seen a group of young people going to the next carriage to get food. "There was just a big gap in the wall in the next compartment where [they went]. They are beautiful and they are gone and it's terrible."
Yesterday morning the carnage was coated in fog, delaying the start of a grim hunt for victims still trapped by torn and crushed metal.
Police disaster victim identification squad officers spent the day working with State Emergency Service Volunteers using cutting equipment to hew a path through the wreckage and retrieve bodies. The victims were taken to a temporary morgue set up near the train. Police warned that identification could be a lengthy process. "The scene needs to be examined, photographs taken, logging the exact location of bodies or remains and collecting any relevant items or personal papers that may be in the carriages," squad Acting Inspector Steven Deveson said.
Kerang locals, trucking bodies and transport safety organisations turned their heat on state rail corporation V-Rail's safety record and the lack of level crossing protection. Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky said a state audit of level crossings was already underway, and the Victoria government would decide if any further action would be taken after investigations had been completed.
In the past two years 14 people have been killed in rail accidents in Victoria - more than one-third of the national total - and 160 of the 196 Australians injured seriously in train mishaps were hurt in the state. About one-third of collisions between trains and road vehicles at level crossings happened in the state, including one several years ago at the same crossing. Critics have attacked the state government for failing to improve its 2200 level crossings, only 356 of which have lights and boom gates. The Kerang crossing has lights, but no gates.
- with AAP
