Sas sar vol 6 no 5

about 300 ft. The gradient was reported as one in seven, which is an obvious misstatement of 1 in 70. Trains were subject to a speed limit of 45 m.p.h. for passenger trains and 35 for goods trains.

Mr. van Niekerk, the Pluntree Station Master, went through the sequence of events at his end. At 2.25 p.m. he had first phoned Tsessebe re the crossing. Subsequently the crossing was arranged for Ramaquebane, which was confirmed by telegraph and again over the phone. The goods was running about 70 minutes ahead of schedule. At about 4p.m, he received an enquiry from C. at Tsessebe as some doubt had arisen about the orders and S. said the goods had an order for Vakaranga.

Guard Botha testified that his train arrived at Tsessebe at 2.30p.m. He was given an order for Vakaranga — an out of course crossing order — which was handed over in the station office. S. told him to tell the driver to get a move on, on which statement I shall comment in a later chapter.

Having picked up a passenger at Ramaquebane, and attended to the ticket, Botha had just returned to the van when the collision occurred; he heard no whistle.

Dirk Johannes Crafford, as C. can now be identified*, was the incoming Station Master. He described how he started taking over at 11a.m. and how at 2.30 p.m., as he was occupied with cash and books, S. undertook to arrange the crossing of the two trains. S. handed over the order and the goods train left at 2.45p.m. Later, with the handing ever completed, S. went to say goodbye to his friends. C. went up to the points to admit the Mail. At 4.20 p.m. he returned to the office and drew S.'s attention to the lateness of the Mail. S. suggested that it might have been delayed at the crossing place. Just as he mentioned the crossing place he seemed to be struck by something. He went into the office and inspected the orders. At once he noticed they were made out to Vakaranga. C. confirmed this and checked with the telegraph tape which clearly showed Ramaquebane — at once he phoned Plumtree. Shortly after, they discovered another order in the waste paper basket, for Ramaquebane. S. drew attention to the fact that this order preceded the operative one. The "not running advice" had been left out so S. had thrown it away.

The goods was normally booked to cross several trains in the Tsessebe -Plumtree section. S. did not say how the second order came to be made out.

J. J. van Wyk, the guard of the passenger train, stated that he left Plumtree at 3.12 p.m. Shortly after Vakaranga the train entered the cutting; he heard two whistles and the crash occurred. In response to a question he stated that out of course crossings were an almost daily occurrence. It will be appreciated that a considerable degree of flexibility must inevitably be needed in the changeable circumstances of train operation over a section like this, but it is understandable that following a major accident the term "out of course crossing" would have a most sinister ring to the ears of an outside enquirer.

S. understandably reserved his defence and was committed for trial on the charge. As we have seen, bail was net at £100.

While we wait for the trial, another rail accident featured in the newspaper. On Thursday June 2nd the Chronicle had a photo of a collision at Viviers, near Beaufort West. On the right of the photo a pair of locomotives, double-heading, lay on their sides - the left of the photo showed the axles and wheels of another locomotive upside down. Clearly the South African Railways were going through an unhappy phase. On May 19th a head-on collision had occurred between the Lourenco Marques to Johannesburg Mail train and a goods train at a place called Dryden, killing the two drivers and injuring the two firemen and a passenger. On May 27th two goods trains collided at Pretoria West.

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