Locomotive Plunges Off Lyttelton Wharf

This spot looks calm enough now, but on the evening of March 26, 1907, things were anything but. The Southern Express, which usually arrives in Christchurch around five, runs through to Lyttelton every evening, connecting passengers, luggage, and mail with the ferry steamer for Wellington. The train, which was often very long during the Exhibition and holiday season, runs to the inner end of the Gladstone Pier where the main engine is uncoupled. A shunting engine then couples to the other end of the train and draws it onto No. 2 wharf, where the Wellington steamer waits.

On this particular evening, the express was running late. It didn't arrive until six o'clock, and it was a very long train with twenty-one carriages and vans. Shunting engine No. 28, a Fairlie's patent, coupled on the rear end as usual and ran onto the wharf. Everything was going smoothly until the engine reached its usual stopping place.

Instead of stopping, the engine kept going. It ran half off the end of the wharf, projecting out over the harbor waters in an extraordinary way. This all happened in just a few seconds. The bogie, with the cylinders and the engine's locomotive works, broke loose and dropped into the water with a mighty splash. The boiler was left projecting eighteen or twenty feet out from the wharf end, with the driver's cab right at the edge and the tender resting on the wharf. Fortunately, the coupling between the tender and the van held fast, preventing the tender and boiler from falling in.

The engine-driver, George Hill, and the fireman, William Butler, were described as the coolest men there. They stayed in the cab even when it looked like the engine might plunge into the sea, doing what they could to minimize the danger. Once it stopped, with more than half its length over the end, they started blowing off steam and throwing out the fire.

Naturally, this caused a lot of excitement on the wharf. The usual crowd was there to see the steamer, which was the Mararoa that day. Passengers quickly left the carriages, and someone on the wharf even ran along, yelling for people to jump off because the train was going over the end. However, the carriages stopping prevented a serious panic. The engine's whistle shrilled continuously for several minutes, spreading news of the mishap. People came running, and the end of the wharf was soon crowded with onlookers. Railway workers, police, and harbor officials arrived quickly and began securing the half-suspended engine. The initial crowd hampered their work, but a rope was later stretched across the wharf to keep those without official business out of the way.

The engine wasn't replaced on the line that night. It was fastened to the wharf with ropes and chains, and the attached van and the carriage next to it were left in place, presumably to help keep the engine from slipping further. The crane needed to lift the engine was undergoing an overhaul at the Addington workshops at the time, but efforts to free the suspended engine were planned for the next day. There was much speculation about the cause of the accident, with the general theory being that something had gone wrong with the Westinghouse brake. The driver, George Hill, had a reputation as a careful and experienced man, accustomed to taking the train onto the wharf. He was reportedly seen carefully examining his brake before moving the train from Gladstone Pier to this wharf. An eyewitness said the brakes were applied at the usual spot, just as the engine cleared the shelter shed.