Steam train to stop in Otorohanga

Barry from Otorohanga District

Midday Saturday 6th May – a Memorial Express will stop in Otorohanga.
A memorial train will travel to Tangiwai on Saturday 6th for the placement of a memorial plaque in honour of the Train Driver Charles Parker and Train Fireman Lance Redman who died when the express train plunged into the Whangaehu River.
At 10.21 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1953 the Wellington–Auckland night express plunged into the flooded Whangaehu River at Tangiwai, 10 km west of Waiōuru in the central North Island. Of the 285 passengers and crew on board, 151 died in New Zealand’s worst railway accident.
It was, at the time, the world’s eighth-deadliest rail disaster and made headlines around the globe. The nation was stunned. With New Zealand’s population just over two million, many people had a direct relationship with someone involved in the tragedy.
The place name Tangiwai means ‘weeping waters’ in Māori. The timing of the accident added to the sense of tragedy. Most of those on the train were heading home for Christmas, armed with presents for friends and family. Those waiting to meet their loved ones at the various stations up the line had no sense of the tragedy unfolding on the Volcanic Plateau. Over the following days, searchers found many battered, mud-soaked presents, toys and teddy bears on the banks of the Whangaehu River.
Travelling at approximately 65 km per hour, locomotive Ka 949 and its train of nine carriages and two vans reached the severely weakened bridge at 10.21 p.m. As the bridge buckled beneath its weight, the engine plunged into the river, taking all five second-class carriages with it. The force of the torrent destroyed four of these carriages – those inside had little chance of survival.
Evidence suggested that the locomotive driver, Charles Parker, had applied the emergency brakes some 200 m from the bridge, an action which prevented the last three carriages from ending up in the river and saved many lives.