By Karen Phillips
This year marks 110 years since the worst-ever accident along the Warburton Railway.
On 18 April 1912, sixteen workmen left their camp at Evelyn Station aboard a maintenance trolley, heading towards Wandin. Their task was to lay new rails along the line near the Stringybark bridge. They didn’t know they were running late that morning because supervising ganger Albert Williams’ watch was eleven minutes slow.
Normally the men would have reached their work site and removed the trolley from the rails before the Lilydale-bound train came into view. On the downhill run towards the bridge over Stringybark Creek, the gangers saw the locomotive round a bend in the distance. They tried to stop, but the trolley brakes failed to grip the wet and slippery rails.
The gangers found themselves in a terrifying situation. Train and trolley were approaching the bridge from opposite directions. The men could not jump off the bridge, which was 30 feet above the creek. Their trolley was the pump-action type, powered by working a handle back and forth. Their only chance was to pump as hard as they could towards the oncoming train, in the hope of clearing the bridge before the engine struck them. They reached the far side with only seconds to spare.
The engine driver, Henry Collings, applied the brakes as soon as he saw the trolley. He could not stop the train, which was travelling at the maximum speed of 40 miles per hour. The engine’s cowcatcher caught the trolley, upending it and smashing it to pieces. Most of the crew leapt down onto the embankment. One said he heard someone shout ‘jump’, and he jumped. The engine narrowly missed another man, who pushed his mate off the trolley ahead of him, saving his life. Four men who could not jump clear in time were killed. Three others were injured.
The dead were Walter Peberdy, Robert Hallam, Henry James and David Baxter. Peberdy and James were immigrants, who had arrived in Victoria only a few months earlier. Peberdy’s wife was on her way out from England to join him.
After visiting the scene of the collision, the jury at the inquest found that the deaths were accidental. No railway employees were blamed.
The present Stringybark Creek bridge on the Rail Trail replaced the original wooden trestle bridge at the scene of the accident.
