Goods Train Derailment (1999)

On Saturday 9th January 1999, No. 36 goods traveling north from Hobart to Burnie in the Australian State of Tasmania, derailed at Chigwell in Hobart's northern suburbs.

The derailment was apparently caused by a track buckle in a timber-sleepered section that had been replaced by steel sleepers earlier that week.

The wobbly track seen towards the end was straight before the train ran over it - except for a slight track buckle/kink that was probably caused by heat (January is high summer in Australia).

Although the actual derailment isn't seen, it's graphically heard at (2:50) and (2:56) when bogies from a loaded wagon (blue containers) jump the track and leave a trail of track devastation for about a kilometre.

The loco. crew didn't realise until a witness contacted Train Control which in turn contacted them. By the time the train stopped at Austins Ferry, 9 wagons had come off the track.

The locomotives are four English-Electric diesel-electric locomotives built in Queensland for use in Tasmania in the early 1970s (2118 -ex ZA6, 2111 -ex Z2 "Bell Bay Pioneer", 2110 -ex Z1 "Northern Progress" , & 2112 -ex Z 3). They did not come off the track.

(some info. sourced from "Tasmanian Rail News" magazine, issue 204 Feb. 1999, ARHS Tas. Division).