The most tragic of all such occurrences was the death of 151 men, women, and children on Christmas Eve, 1953, when a sudden discharge of thousands of tons of water from the crater lake of Mt. Ruapehu destroyed the railway bridge at Tangiwai, 10 miles south of Ohakune, and provided a death trap for a crowded holiday night-express train on its way from Wellington to Auckland. In some instances, whole families of holiday makers, young and old, perished together in the most horrible conditions. When the lake waters found an outlet beneath the Whangaehu Glacier, they swirled tumultuously into the Whangaehu River, carrying with them ice, ash, boulders, and debris. The swift and sudden deluge, known scientifically as a lahar, hurled itself against the powerful concrete pylons of the railway bridge and swept away 154 ft of the 198 ft of decking and track. The night-express raced on to the bridge at high speed and plunged to its doom. Engine and fuel tender flew from the broken permanent way, smashed their couplings, and crashed into the opposite bank, 40 yards away. The following carriages continued on and fell 35 ft into the raging filth of the river below. Five carriages were immediately submerged and a sixth teetered on the brink until it too toppled over and was swept downstream. Only three cars remained on the rails. It was the torrent of water, ice, silt, and ash, together with the oil fuel from the crashed tender, that took the toll of life, not the impact of the crash. Those who extricated themselves from the carriages were stripped, choked, and asphyxiated by the foul flood in which they found themselves. Darkness lent added horror to the scene and greatly hampered the rescue work of railwaymen, road travellers, and Army personnel from Waiouru Military Camp, 10 miles away. The efforts of this determined band of workers were characterised by such courage and resource that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, who was in New Zealand at the time, made immediate awards of the George Medal and the British Empire Medal to mark the gallantry of four men. The freak flood subsided with uncanny swiftness and the search for the dead began in earnest. Out of 285 persons known to have been on the train only 134 survived. A total of 131 bodies were recovered and 20 other passengers have never been accounted for.
In view of the many stories about high winds in the Wellington and Wairarapa districts, it is not surprising that there has been one fatal accident on the famous incline over the Rimutaka Range. On the morning of 11 September 1880 a small train left Greytown for Wellington. In order to negotiate the incline the locomotive was placed in the centre of the train, pushing two carriages and a van, and hauling two wagons of timber and a Fell van. Owing to rain and a heavy wind, progress up the incline was unusually slow and, as the train reached the sharp curve before “Siberia” tunnel, the two carriages and the van were blown off the line. Although the couplings held and the weight of the engine prevented the carriages and van from rolling into the valley below, the body of the first carriage was torn from its mounting and the passengers were thrown on to the hillside. Three children were killed and 11 adults injured in this, the only fatal accident to a passenger train on the incline. There is no foundation for the legend that a complete passenger train was blown off the incline and came to rest in the valley below “Siberia” corner.
On the evening of Saturday, 11 March 1899, two excursion trains which were travelling from Ashburton to Christchurch, carrying 3,000 employees of the Christchurch Meat Co., Islington, and their families, collided at the Rakaia Railway Station. Four of the passengers were killed and 22 were injured. Describing the accident, the New Zealand Railway Review of March 1899 said that the engine of the second train crashed into the guard's van of the first, causing it to cut 14 ft into the next carriage while the third carriage mounted the platform of the second to a distance of about 8 ft. Because it was raining heavily at the time of the collision, the Commission of Inquiry reported that the enginedriver on the second train had been negligent in not observing the regulations governing an approach to a station.
When the Cromwell-Dunedin express was derailed on the outskirts of the tiny Central Otago township of Hyde, on the afternoon of 4 June 1943, it carried a heavy complement of passengers bound for the Winter Show Carnival in Dunedin. Wartime petrol rationing was at the time forcing traffic on to the railways. Twenty-one of those on board were killed and 47 were injured, and because the accident was proved to have been the consequence of a grave dereliction of duty on the part of the engine driver, the Government was liable for compensation claims which involved a sum in excess of £200,000. Travelling at an excessive speed, the engine jumped the rails in a deep cutting and rolled over. One carriage continued on and was smashed, and a second was telescoped against the back of the derailed engine. Four other cars were extensively damaged, only two escaping unscathed. The accident occurred in a relatively uninhabited part of Central Otago, and medical and mechanical aid was delayed for some time. Had the engine driver lost control later in the afternoon when the rougher terrain of the Taieri Gorge and its approaches had been reached, the death roll must have been very much greater. That only 21 lost their lives was due in large measure to the excellent organisation of the rescue work.
Another railway disaster, and in its day New Zealand's worst, occurred in the King Country on 5 July 1923. The Main Trunk express from Auckland to Wellington crashed into a huge slip at Ongarue, near Taumarunui, and was wrecked. Fourteen people were killed and 30 seriously injured. It had been an ill-fated journey from the outset. As is often the case in winter, heavy weather had been drenching most of the inland area of the North Island for days. Landslides and rail blockages had been reported from many points, and the outlook was so unpromising that the departure of the express from Auckland had been delayed for four hours. Finally it was decided that a start could be made on the 426–mile night journey. After leaving the Waikato Plains behind, the train edged its way gingerly round minor slips and obstructions, and then plunged heavily into a veritable landslide at Ongarue.
In October 1940 the Limited express, northbound from Wellington to Auckland, encountered trouble at 8.15 a.m. on the final stages of its journey when, without warning, the engine and tender jumped the rails. Fortunately the following carriages did not follow suit. In this case appearances outdid reality to an alarming degree. The permanent way was a shambles, but no deaths occurred among the full complement of passengers. Ten were seriously injured, but the only fatalities were the engine driver and fireman, who were killed when the locomotive capsized. B.J.F. and R.J.