Gwen Hohnke was 17 years old when she found out her fiance, Neville, had just gone under a train wagon while working at the Taree railway yard. The young shunter had lost both his legs.
“They sent one wagon down and the brakes failed, but he managed to stop it,” she said of the accident in 1955. “Then they sent down the other one and it hit and dragged him underneath. He was conscious the whole time. He couldn’t work out why he could see his boot way down the line.
Gwen Hohnke at the National Rail Monument wall of remembrance in Werris Creek.
“He survived thanks to the head shunter, who was there quickly with tourniquets and the first aid kit.”
Today’s rail network is safer, Tracksafe Foundation executive director Heather Neil says, but dozens of people are killed or injured each year, and rail workers traumatised by events they witness.
At least five passersby have been fatally struck by trains at Sydney stations this year, including a man and his two-year-old daughter killed at Carlton last month when a pram carrying the child and her twin sister rolled onto the tracks.
“These freak events just knock people around,” Neil said. “We can only imagine how difficult it is for all the rail workers involved, including that train driver, who will be haunted by this for the rest of their life.”
A volunteer adds a name to the Wall of Remembrance at the Werris Creek National Rail Monument.
On average, 83 people die on the national rail network each year, mostly through suspected suicide. About two rail workers a year die on the job.
Industry representatives will travel to the National Rail Monument at Werris Creek, near Tamworth, on Monday to remember those killed, injured or affected by rail accidents as part of Rail Safety Week, which Transport for NSW secretary Josh Murray said served as an important reminder of the dangers associated with operating train networks.
“Safety is always our top priority, including for our people working on the rail network and the local communities.”
Among those attending the event are the widows of Kevin Baker and Mick Warren, two South Australian freight train drivers killed at a level crossing near the NSW border last year. They will add their husbands’ names to a wall of remembrance at the monument, which records 4500 rail workers who have died on the job since 1850.
Hohnke curates the list as part of her work with the Werris Creek Railway Journeys Museum, almost 70 years after Neville’s accident prompted the couple to move to the railway town so he could take up an office job.
Others named include John Howitt, a 14-year-old “hook boy” crushed to death while joining wagons, and Esther Faulkiner, 44, a “gate lady” killed when a horse bolted while she was operating a gate at a level crossing.
Hohnke has spent months working with fellow volunteers to add more than 800 missing names to the wall of remembrance before Monday’s ceremony.
“I sit here sometimes looking at the computer [database] and the stories are really terrible,” Hohnke said. “They weren’t all accidents, but most of them were.”
Crisis support is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
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