Southern Aurora Crash

[David Johnson <trainman@ozemail.com.au>]

Following the lengthy discussions on this subject, I have OCR'ed an article from
the March 1969 Railway Transportation magazine, shown below (no guarantees about
the accuracy of the OCR)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Nine Killed in Disastrous Southern Aurora Collision

MELBOURNE-One of Australia's worst rail disasters occurred last month when the
crack luxury passenger express the    Southern Aurora, collided head-on with a
freight train at Violet Town, 105 miles from Melbourne.
The accident occurred shortly after 7 a.m. on Friday, February 7, on the
Victorian Railways' single - track standard gauge Melbourne - Albury line, about
half a mile on the south (Melbourne) side of the Violet Town crossing loop.
The passenger express had an almost capacity load of 192 passengers plus a crew
complement of 22 and was running several minutes late when the collision took
place.
Nine were killed in the accident and over 50 injured and admitted to hospital.
Included among the fatalities were the drivers of the two trains, a conductor
and a train electrician, both employees of the New South Wales Government
Railways.
It is reported that the firemen-observers of both the Southern Aurora and the
freight train leapt from their locomotives shortly before the impact. Both
received serious injuries,
Eight of the Southern Aurora's normal consist of 14 cars were derailed and
extensively damaged in the collision.    These included the PHN-class
power/brake van, two NAM-class twinette sleeping cars, three LAN-class roomette
sleeping cars, the RMS-class dining car and the BCS-class club car.
The remaining six cars (two LAN-class, two NAM-class, one DAM-class deluxe
sleeping car, and the MHN-class luggage van) suffered only minor damage and were
not derailed.
Details of the damage to the freight train had not been released when this issue
closed for press.
The collision crushed the power van and the first two sleeping cars. The third,
fourth and fifth sleeping cars plus the dining and club cars were thrown from
the track and came to rest among the wreckage which included the Aurora's
S-class diesel- electric locomotive and the freight train's X-class hood unit.

FIRE DAMAGE
Shortly after the impact, an explosion occurred in the power van and fire swept
through several of the damaged passenger cars.
VR Perway employees who were working near the scene, immediately ran to the
train and began to smash windows of the derailed sleeping cars to help the
passengers trapped  inside. They were assisted shortly afterwards by local
residents of Violet Town who heard the sound of the crash and rushed to the
scene.
Immediately the report of the accident was sent to the VR headquarters in
Melbourne the State Disaster Plan was put into action and within a short time,
police, the army, ambulances, the Red Cross and doctors were on the scene. Teams
of doctors were flown from Melbourne in special aircraft.
Rail rescue equipment was immediately despatched to Violet Town and a temporary
by-pass was constructed around the accident.       Rail services were resumed
late that night. Passengers who did not require hospital attention were conveyed
to Melbourne in chartered buses and arrived at Spencer Street station late I in
the afternoon.
The Southern Aurora was scheduled to pass the Violet Town crossing loop at 6.44
a.m., The freight train was No. 4281 through goods which was scheduled to leave
Dynon for Albury at 1.25 a.m. and was timetabled to refuge in the crossing loop
at Benalla (16 miles north of Violet Town)     to permit the Southern Aurora to
pass at 6.15.

SPARE CARS
Immediately news of the accident was made known, the Commonwealth Minister for
Shipping and Transport, Mr I. Sinclair, offered the use of spare passenger cars
built for the Commonwealth Railways and the Railways of Australia Sydney-Perth
service, so that the Southern Aurora services could be resumed.
A check made by a staff member of this magazine, several days after the accident
showed that the following rolling stock was running in place of the damaged
equipment: PHN-class power/brake van, a VR- owned VAC-class Sitting/sleeping car
as normally used on the Melbourne - Canberra through Service on the Spirit of
Progress, four Aurora sleeping cars, four ROA Sydney-Perth Sleeping cars, one CR
dining car, one ROA club car and a MHN-class luggage van.
The Six cars which were not de-railed were brought to Sydney for overhaul and
inspection and were returned to service as quickly as possible.
The remaining eight cars were sent to the VR Workshops at Newport where they
were inspected. A decision will be made as to whether they would be scrapped or
rebuilt. A similar decision will be made concerning the two locomotives.
The Chairman of Commissioners, Mr G. F. Brown. and other top VR executives
immediately flew to the accident scene.

HEART FAILURE
A post-mortem conducted by the Senior Government Pathologist, Dr. J. McNamara
and two other doctors disclosed that the driver of the Southern Aurora had died
from heart failure before the collision occurred.
Speaking shortly after the accident, the VR Deputy Chairman, Mr E. P. Rogan,
said that the Southern Aurora had run through points at the Southern (Melbourne)
end of the crossing loop which had been set for the freight train to be diverted
to the loop to permit the passenger train to pass.
Mr Rogan said that the Centralised Traffic Control signalling system which
controls all train movements on the standard gauge line between West Footscray
and Wodonga had been tested and had been found to be in order. He added that a
Board of Inquiry had been constituted to inquire into the accident and he did
not wish to anticipate its findings.
A special meeting of the Victorian State Cabinet was called on the Monday
morning to consider a six-page report on the accident which had been compiled by
the VR Commissioners and was presented by the Minister for Transport, Mr V.
Wilcox.
Speaking at a press conference after the Cabinet meeting, the Minister said that
the Southern Aurora had passed two signals showing warning indications which is
normal practice and one signal showing a stop indication before it collided with
the freight train.
Although the Southern Aurora rollingstock is jointly owned by the VR and the
NSWGR on a mileage pro-rata basis (roughly one-third VR and two-thirds NSWGR),
the VR will accept all financial responsibility for the rebuilding of the
equipment and compensation claims.

5000 JOURNEYS
The Southern Aurora was placed in service in April, 1962, and since that time,
the two 14-car trains which leave Sydney and Melbourne simultaneously every
night, seven days a week, at 8 p.m. for the 597-mile journey between Australia’s
two largest cities, have operated over 5000 journeys without any passenger
fatalities or serious accidents.
Australia's worst rail disaster occurred at Sunshine, a Melbourne suburb in
April, 1908, when a rear-end collision took place between two holiday - packed
country trains.  44 passengers were killed and 431 injured.
Until the Southern Aurora accident, only one passenger has been killed on the VR
system in 40 years and that took place in April, 1952, when two trains collided
head-on at Moriac, near Geelong.



--
David Johnson
CityRail Guard
trainman@ozemail.com.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~trainman/