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Adelaide passenger train slides off tracks

The train slid off the tracks and hit a bumper stop.

Investigations are continuing into an incident on a suburban Adelaide rail line in which a train carrying about 20 passengers derailed and collided with a buffer last November. The train slid off the tracks at the end of Grange Station around 6.30pm in the evening and hit a bumper stop next to Military Road.

Passengers and staff were uninjured and safely disembarked. Services on the Grange line resumed after repairs were completed overnight. Public Transport Authority executive director Scott White said the incident would be investigated to determine the cause. “Essentially the train sort of slipped, so it

never stopped and the wheels span and the train continued,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide. “And then of course we’ve got a buffer stop there which is there for this exact reason, it did its job and stopped that train from going any further.” White said the buffer stops were designed to stop trains travelling at low speeds when entering the end of the line. “Occasionally they do dislodge the buffer, in this instance they did,” he said. Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator was assisting the investigation. “We are talking about very, very heavy pieces of machinery on rail tracks that when things go wrong, they can be catastrophic,” he said. “Stopping a train is very very hard, so that is why we always have a lot of focus on safety. “But I’m just very pleased that no-one was injured, very pleased that no-one was on the footpath or in the way of that train as it came off those rail lines.”

Aurizon helps fund SA and NT businesses South Australian and Northern Territory businesses are among the successful recipients in the latest round of Aurizon’s Community Giving Fund. The program is part of the freight operator’s ongoing commitment to supporting and engaging with the local communities in which it operates, with funding provided in the areas of education, community safety, environment and health and wellbeing. Managing director and chief executive officer Andrew Harding said this current round of assistance would provide support to 40 local projects across the company’s national footprint, with additional funding provided for its new operations in South Australia and the Northern Territory. “Following the acquisition of the One Rail Australia business earlier this year, including the Tarcoola to Darwin railway, it is exciting to see the successful recipients of these Aurizon grants in South Australia and the NT,” he said. “We are thrilled to be supporting the local communities in these two new locations in addition to those in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia where our people live and work,” he added. “In South Australia for example, we’re funding Short Back and Sidewalks Ltd, which

offers free hair-cutting and grooming for people experiencing homelessness. They will use the funding to establish a new weekly service to be delivered at the Hutt Street Centre in Adelaide, providing 600 free haircuts per year,” he said. “In the Northern Territory, Children’s Ground will use the Aurizon funding to assist with the production and release of educational Arrernte language music for children, with the aim of keeping the Arrernte language strong and visible and to provide opportunities to First Nations artists who will contribute to the production of the music. Arrernte, an Australian Aboriginal language, is spoken

by about 3000 people in Central Australia, particularly in Alice Springs.” In NSW, the Australian Kookaburra Kids Foundations will use the funds to sponsor about 20 young people in the Illawarra region to attend Kookaburra Kids camps, while in WA, WA PCYC will use the funding to help with the delivery of 10 sessions of the WACA Deadly Cricket Program aimed at Indigenous females aged between 12 and 17 years. In Queensland, LifeFlight Foundation will use the funding for its ‘First Minute Matters’ community trauma training program at locations across Bowen, Moranbah, Emerald and Blackwater.

Adelaide-based Short Back and Sidewalks is one of the latest fund recipients.