Australia’s worst rail tragedy remembered 41 years on

It has been 41 years since the Bold St Bridge collapsed on two train carriages in Granville, killing 83 people and injuring 213 others.

Roses are thrown onto the tracks of Granville’s Bold St Bridge each year to commemorate Australia’s worst rail tragedy.

Forty-one years ago 83 people were killed and another 213 injured when a NSW commuter train derailed and struck the Bold St bridge near Granville railway station, just after 8am, in what remains Australia’s worst rail tragedy.

Today. like each year, the bridge is closed with roses tossed to the tracks to commemorate those who died, with hundreds of flowers laid at the memorial wall.

The 170-tonne concrete bridge collapsed on the packed train, which was travelling to Sydney from Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains, crushing the third and fourth carriages on January 18, 1977.

It was a terrifying scene at Granville in the minutes following the crash, with ambulance workers and passers-by rushing to trapped victims aid. Picture: Archive News Corp

Victims received little assistance in the aftermath of the crash, while subsequent inquiries revealed an alarming lack of maintenance on ageing infrastructure.

The names of the victims were again read aloud as a church bell chimed at exactly 8.10am, the time the bridge collapsed, crushing the two carriages.

The apology by the ministers was seen as long overdue by survivors and victims’ family members. Pictured is Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance. Picture: Joel Carrett

Gladys Berejiklian. issued an apology to the victims of the 1977 Granville Train Disaster at Parliament House.

Last year, on the 40th anniversary of the tragedy, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Transport Minister Andrew Constance made a long-awaited apology to the survivors, emergency workers and relatives affected by the rail disaster.

“I express my genuine, heartfelt sorrow for the terrible trauma you suffered at the time and the devastating pain and loss that you have had to live with for many years,” Ms Berejiklian told the packed public gallery at NSW parliament.

The premier acknowledged the apology had come 40 years too late.