By ROY WARD
TRAIN services on the Cranbourne
line will be disrupted for five days or more following a fatal crash at a
Dandenong South level crossing yesterday.
The police major collision unit is
still investigating the crash, which happened about 11.40am when a prime mover
loaded with fruit and vegetables and the leading carriage of a Cranbourne-bound
train collided at the Abbotts Road level crossing.
One train passenger, a 43-year-old Cranbourne West man, died from a heart attack after the crash and at least 10 others were
treated for injuries.
SEE: ‘Joy ride’ turns into trauma.
SEE: Truck appeared to crash into gates.
CLICK HERE for our gallery of the tragic aftermath.
CLICK HERE for our gallery from Saturday night.
CLICK HERE for more images from the crash site.
The train driver, a 30-year-old man from Gisborne, suffered head injuries and was still in The Alfred hospital on Sunday morning.
Police would not identify the dead man or give further details
about him as they were still notifying his family.
Several passengers got off
the train after the crash and left the scene.
Police are appealing for those
people to come forward and give statements about the collision.
Four carriages of the Cranbourne-bound train were derailed, one flipping sideways from the tracks.
Buses will replace train services between Cranbourne and Dandenong during the line closure. Public Transport Victoria is advising passengers to allow extra time for their journeys. The Abbotts road crossing was closed to traffic today.
Metro Trains
chief executive Andrew Lezala said the railway line and the level crossing were
all damaged. There were about 30 passengers on the train. He said the
Cranbourne line could take days to clear before work could begin on replacing
damaged sleepers and overhead lines.
Mr Lezala said he did not know how much
the repair job would cost.
”The problem we have got, and I’m going to be quite guarded about the time, is the ground on either side of the track is fairly boggy, so getting heavy lifting equipment in there will be fairly difficult,’’ he
said.
‘‘We are going to be very careful to recover the train safely and carry
it away; it might take us a couple of days.
‘‘Then we have to replace the track. All the
sleepers are broken and the overhead stanchions were pulled down by the coach, which slid
about 150 metres on its side.
‘‘The overhead lines will need to be
put back; at best it will take five days.’’
Mr Lezala joined Premier Ted
Baillieu, Transport Minister Terry Mulder, Public Transport Victoria chief
executive Ian Dobbs and police Assistant Commissioner Robert Hill at the crash
site yesterday.
Mr Baillieu called the accident a ‘‘terrible tragedy’’ and said
his heart went out to the family of the dead passenger.
Mr Mulder said things
could have been much worse had the accident happened on a weekday, when trains sometimes carry up to 900 people.
‘‘Could you imagine what could have
happened if this was a weekday?’’ he said. ‘‘In the middle of the week we
could have been facing a catastrophic situation.’’
The section of track is rated for 115 km/h.
Assistant Commissioner
Hill said any witnesses should call Crime Stoppers and give their
statements.
Mr Dobbs said four other trains were on the Cranbourne end of the
line before the smash and would not be able to rejoin the train network until
the line was cleared and repaired.
‘‘This is one of the worst we have had in the last
20-30 years. I’ve seen accidents like this in Europe but not here.
‘‘It’s
going to be a very demanding week for Metro and I would ask people to bear in
mind we are going to have problems and that we are doing the best that we can to
get the trains working.’’
Mr Dobbs said that would affect the number of
trains available this week, which coincides with the Melbourne Cup carnival, when
trains are in heavy use.
‘‘Please bear with us over the next few days. We
will be short of trains.
”People on the Cranbourne line will have buses
replacing trains and we would ask them to bear with us while we get the rail
network back working.’’
The truck driver, a 69-year-old man from Narre Warren North, was assisting police.
