Accidents
Level crossing accidents and other incidents seemed to be synonymous with these railcars.
On 18 August 1981, half of the first and second sets derailed and rolled north of Waiouru, when the northbound service was descending curves. Passengers reported that the railcar had been travelling quickly over this section of the journey and the speed around curves just before the derailment had been concerning. The subsequent enquiry found that many of the speed restriction boards for the curves in the area were missing or misleading; a full audit of speed restrictions across the entire rail network was one of the enquiry outcomes. Four people were killed and another 16 injured. The railcars were replaced by the "Blue Fern" on Wednesdays for three years until May 1984, to allow the two remaining railcar sets to be serviced while the damaged set was being repaired.
In 1989 and again in 1990 the Blue Fern train ran instead of railcars after Silver Fern railcars were involved in accidents.
Read more about this topic: NZR RM Class (Silver Fern)
Famous quotes containing the word accidents:
“Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it.”
—George Farquhar (1678–1707)
“I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,
Those undreamt accidents that have made me
Seeing that Fame has perished this long while,
Being but a part of ancient ceremony
Notorious, till all my priceless things
Are but a post the passing dogs defile.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)