" PAST " BERALA STATION FOCUS OF MEMORIES

Berala Station Looking South

 

 

If only because I used it almost every weekday, from 1950 to 1970, BERALA Railway Station ( the Americanised "Train Station" only came into use with the "SESAME STREET"generations of the 1970's onwards) is the focus of many and varied memories. It looked different then, no blue seats and signs - the seats were Brunswick Green and the signs were Stone coloured with large black lettering. There were no spy cameras either - Big Nanny had yet to arrive.

Can you remember what you were doing on 7th May,1952?  O.K. - most of you were in no condition to do anything : the great "not born yet"majority. But I was walking toward Berala Station up Hyde Park Road just about opposite the three or four local shops. I noticed something odd around the station.There seemed to be one long train stopped there, overhanging the Platform at both ends. The truth became quickly evident as police and emergency vehicles came into sight, and the full view of the Platform revealed carriages skewed at crazy angles and over the high embankment on which the tracks and Platform (accessed by a arched brick- lined tunnel and stairs) stood.

The BERALA train crash cost 10 lives and injuries reported varyingly from 84 to 140. It had been a foggy morning and there was an eight car russet coloured electric train in the Platform heading North toward Lidcombe and the City. Stopped at the Red Signal back to the South toward Regents Park , was a similar following train headed for the City also. It was peak hour and there is always pressure to maintain the schedule. The second train's driver slowly drove his train past the "Stop"Signal and was automatically brought to a halt by the trip lever at ground level. This lever raised itself whenever the Signal turned Red ,so that it would engage the trip lever on any electric train that tried to pass, stopping it (Steam locomotives had no such device). Drivers were allowed, in special circumstances to re-start their train and proceed with extreme caution. This procedure is called "tripping through". This is what the driver did. But here things become complicated to say the least.

The testimony of two men in a truck on the near parallel road observed the following train doing at least 30 -35 mph ( say,50 - 60 kph) at the moment of impact, and the force of the impact which drove the following train to telescope 4 carriages into the standing train, attested to that observation. Yet, experts testified that the following train could not have accelerated to that speed from the "Stop"Signal. Press reports highlighted this contradiction. But I believe the following train's driver died in the collision and the mystery was left unresolved.

There were many heroes on that day, but prominent among them was Father John Gallagher from St,Joachim's in Lidcombe (the Parish in which my Mum and Dad had been married in 1927). Father Gallagher with stole about his neck and his Anointing Kit had climbed into the crazily skewed wreckage at considerable danger to himself, helping those in need and anointing those in greater need. He had done what any Priest should, but in those days it was reported, to-day , the reporting might be different.(He was a very interesting person, having brought to Australia the Canadian Antigonish credit union movement.) It was a terrible sight, a grotesque twist of everyday reality. The fact that outdated wooden carriages mixed with the normal modern steel carriages had been totally shattered in the impact, with great loss of life, was not lost on observers and investigators. Within a short time there were rows of them at the wrecking yards. Too late.

Happier Times

One of the great sights to behold at BERALA STATION was the MELBOURNE LIMITED EXPRESS thundering through the Platform on its way to Central Station in the City. Hauled in those days by the mighty green liveried C 38 Class Steam Locomotives and usually composed of very long and heavy Teak Varnished Carriages each  running on two big six wheeled bogies, it was a magnificent sight - especially on a Winter's morning when the exhausting of the 245 lbs psi steam would create quite a show. The great connecting rods of the locomotive used to flash around coming just above Platform level as they passed. This seemed to have an endless fascination for any dogs on the Platform, They would always try to keep up with the locomotive barking and snapping at the rods. Luckily for them they never made contact!



Two C38 Class Locomotives -5 were streamlined, 25 were not.

 

To-day our Railway Stations abound with signs forbidding this, that and the other thing,warning that you are being watched and that Nanny thinks you should stand "Here"or "There"and urging you to be P.C. and save the world. 'Twas  not always thus. BERALA STATION like every other station on the New South Wales Government Railways had in its openish, austere Waiting Room two large signs with very fine print,which, when read after you had just missed the 7.30 am to the City and waited for the 7.45 am to the City, revealed that the Penalty for placing objects on the railway lines was up to "Life Imprisonment", and various other misdeeds like walking across the railway tracks carried similarly severe but rarely known penalties. The whole was presented in that marvellous, forbidding language that the lawyers of those days seemed to have inherited from Monarchs of the Middle Ages. Later in life I was to work for the Solicitor for Railways and inter alia ( like that??) had to serve Summonses from the Railway Court which included such phrases when commanding the Defendant's appearance as "Herein fail not!" Great stuff - that would scare the poor citizen witless!