Locomotive Plunges Off Lyttelton Wharf

At a few minutes past six on the evening of March 26, 1907, the usual routine of transferring passengers from the express train to the ferry steamer on Lyttelton's No. 2 wharf was disrupted by a startling incident. The Southern Express, which normally arrived in Lyttelton around 5:10 PM, was running late that night, pulling in at six o'clock with a long train of twenty-one carriages and vans.

The shunting engine, No. 28, known as Fairlie's patent, coupled onto the rear of the train as it usually did and began drawing it onto the wharf where the Wellington steamer, the Mararoa, waited. Everything went smoothly until the engine reached its usual stopping place. Instead of stopping, it just kept going, running half off the end of the wharf and hanging over the harbor waters in an extraordinary fashion. The whole thing happened in just a few seconds.

The front part of the engine, the bogie with the cylinders and what they called the "locomotive works," broke loose and dropped into the water with a mighty splash. The boiler was left projecting about eighteen or twenty feet out from the wharf end, with the driver's cab right at the edge and the tender still resting on the wharf. Luckily, the coupling between the tender and the van held tight, which kept the rest of the engine 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 as it looked like the engine might plunge completely into the sea, trying to minimize the danger. Once it stopped with more than half its length over the edge, they started blowing off steam and throwing out the fire.

Naturally, this caused quite a stir on the wharf, where the usual crowd was gathered to see the steamer off. Passengers quickly got out of the carriages, though one person on the wharf was yelling for them to jump, thinking the whole train was going over. But the carriages stopped, preventing a serious panic. The engine's whistle shrieked continuously for several minutes, spreading news of the mishap. People came running, and the end of the wharf was quickly packed with a curious crowd. Railway workers, police, and harbor officials arrived, and they started securing the half-suspended engine. The public initially hampered the work, but a rope was eventually stretched across the wharf to keep those without business connection to the incident away.

They didn't try to put the engine back on the tracks that night. Instead, it was tied to the wharf with ropes and chains, and the attached van and the carriage next to it were left in place, probably to help keep the engine from slipping further. The crane needed to lift it was apparently in the Addington workshops for an overhaul, but they said an attempt to free the engine from its precarious position would be made the next day. There was a lot of talk about what caused it, with the general theory being something went wrong with the Westinghouse brake. The driver, George Hill, had a reputation as a careful and experienced man who was used to this job. He was even seen checking his brake before moving the train from the Gladstone Pier to this wharf. An eyewitness said the brakes were applied at the usual spot, just as the engine cleared the shelter shed of No. 2 wharf, and that for a moment, they seemed to work.