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The train crash and a very old bus.
We had to travel to school by goods train from the siding near our farm into town; the trip into town by train sometimes was very fast taking only a few minutes, however when the wheat harvesting was on, sometimes the train was overloaded and with the extra load the old steam engine had a hard time slowing going down the hills. Before the train left the Uppingham siding , to go down to Greenethorpe, it had to be taken down in two or three sections as the grade was very steep. Even in sections the train sometimes had problems slowing down for the bend at the bottom of the grade. In 1956 the train left the tracks at the bottom bend they say it was doing 90 M.P.H. when it crashed. I remember thinking “ why was the grass growing into the window” – the carriage was upturned and the windows on the other side so high up that we couldn’t get out. When some local farm hands and other passengers pulled us out of the train the carriage we were in was on fire. The other carriages were scattered everywhere with two carriages standing on their ends forming an A shape and the locomotive was on its side with steam and thick black smoke belching from it. The trestle was destroyed in the crash so they put on a, very old bus (a 1948 Maple leaf Chevy with a outthrust bonnet) on to take us to school in Greenethorpe, but the bus also had to take the older kids to high school, the bus used to slow down to a slow crawl so we had to run beside it and jump on to it.
The Bus Accident One morning I was picking mushrooms for my Grandfather so I was last getting on the bus. The driver never stopped for us to get on but slowed to a crawl so that we could jump on. The bus was an old crate and so the driver couldn’t stop for fear it wouldn’t start again, or that he would be late for the next pick-up anyway -At this time the road had just been graded so there was a hump at the side of the road and I was running onto the hump to make my leap onto the bus but lost my footing and fell underneath the bus.
The driver stopped but the dual wheels at the back had already ran over my legs, the thing that I member is that the bus had left tyre marks on my legs my legs hurt and at the age of 6 years old I thought that if the tyre marks were removed the pain would go. The bus driver put me into the bus and drove me into the village where my grandfather did first aid, then the local police sergeant drove me towards the hospital and met the ambulance halfway to town. My next memory is in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. Most of what happened after the bus run over me was told to me much later. I was in Sydney for 18 to 29 months and after I was released from hospital I stayed with my aunt and uncle in St Peters; my aunt and I travelled to and from out-patients by taxi the bills were paid by the Far West Scheme, After I started recovering I went to Camdenville Public School Newtown NSW where the staff used to carry me up to my classroom in a fireman's carry. With all the trips to out-patients I missed lots of school and my education suffered very much but later in life I attended TAFE to improve my education I had leg irons on both legs from the bottom of my feet to my hips, even so I was able to travel home for Christmas by train it was a interesting trip by today’s standards:- My aunt tied a label around my neck with delivery instructions, well the trip home went like this, I took a train from St Peters to Central then from Central to Lithgow, then from Lithgow to Bathurst, then from Bathurst to Blayney, then from Blayney to Cowra, then from Cowra to Koorawatha, then from Koorawatha to Uppingham and was met by hose and sulky for the last leg home in time for Christmas, The trip back to Sydney worked in the reverse. I did two trips like this but the second time I stayed Home, my leg irons were removed a few months later. |
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