The Mail Train That Smashed The Signal

Here is a funny railway story. It is not my story so I will tell it as it was told to me. In the old days when steam ruled the roost and diesels were new contraptions “Queensland Government Railway” had two stations in its network that had smash signals. One was at a place called Makawata.  It is on the north coast main line between Bundaberg and Gladstone.

A little background about how smash signals are set up and how they work is in order. Basically Makawata was a crossing station in those days. The setup was that the points at the departure end of each road are always set against any train, both up and down trains. The smash signals were set across the track in a position that a train passing one of these signals at stop would smash the signal. Hence the name smash signal was used. Beyond the smash signals was a derailer. This meant that a train wishing to depart from either direction needed the signal cleared, the derailer set and the points set for the departure of that train. To do this one needed the staff for the section. It had a key attach to it with an anker chain. This key was used to unlock the leaver frame on the points so as to set everything to proceed.

Normally the fireman would take the staff. Go to the leaver frame. Unlock it and set the road. Then bring the staff back to the staff box. Then either write out a ticket for the train or take the staff back onto the loco. The train would proceed. There was a trip lever in the points so that everything would go back the way it was after the train departed.

One day the mail train turned up with a then new English electric loco on it. (1200 class). The driver was one who prided himself on his ability to stop on a threepence. This day he misjudged the stop. When the train stopped he was pinned in his seat by the smash signal arm protruding though his window and in front of his chest. To get out of this predicament the fireman had to take the staff to the leaver frame, unlock it and try to manoeuvre the leaver while the driver was manoeuvring the train. This was an arduous task as the two could not talk to each other. The leaver is heavy to use this way. The frame would lock every time the leaver was put back into normal position and require unlocking again to have another go.

Eventually the signal arm was moved away from the train and it was able to proceed. These smash signals rotated 90 degrees parallel to the train. They didn’t raise and lower like normal semaphore signals. When I was first told this story I couldn’t stop laughing. When trying to tell others I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to finish the story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.