Heroic tales emerge as passengers tell of ‘terrifying’ Wallan train crash
In the moments after a Sydney to Melbourne train derailed near Wallan, and as passengers came to grips with their world literally turning upside down, one brave traveller had one thing on his mind — saving as many people as he could.
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Children cried and “everyone was screaming” as the train “went flying”, survivors of last night’s horror train crash have told.
One of the 153 passengers onboard the Sydney-Melbourne Express Passenger Train, who gave her name as Noelene, described the horrifying scenes as it came to a deadly stop.
“There was almost silence and then an awful thud as the world turned upside down,” she said.
“People were yelling in confusion and started gasping like the air had been knocked from their lungs.
“It was terrifying and everything was flying around.”
Passenger Finley Arkless, 21, cut his hand trying to rescue one of the train drivers who lost their lives.
Mr Arkless, from Albury, used a fire extinguisher to smash a window in a desperate attempt to free the driver.
“I heard the driver was stuck so pretty much ran to the front and tried to smash the window,” Mr Arkless said.
“I cut my hand up a bit from it. I was just like if no one else is doing it I’ve got to go there.
“They got him out after about an hour. I was there trying to get him as soon as possible. It just seemed like he was in a really bad state.”
Mr Arkless works as a chef in London and is back in Australia visiting family.
He said he was uninjured but slightly shaken up.
By the time he hopped off the carriage he said it was a shock to see the extent of the wreckage.
One passenger described items flying through the air as the train derailed and “suddenly slid into a fast stop”.
Dr Scott Rickard said the “carriage (was) at an angle” and “tray tables went flying”.
“Fortunately only a few ppl (sic) injured in our carriage,” she said on Twitter.
“Stuff flew everywhere. Carriages crumpled at edges. We walked out. Most people able to walk out
“We’re in a bit of shock, but OK. Drinking cuppas now,” she added.
Canberra man James Ashburner, 69, was sitting by the window in the first passenger carriage when the train derailed.
He said it had been travelling “at 100-odd km/h and then things went strange”.
“There was a lot of noise and suddenly there was dust, the train was swaying a lot,” he said.
“I didn’t realise that we had derailed until we came to a stop.
“Initially we were all just stunned, people went flying, stuff went flying. A couple of people had been standing in the aisle and they really went flying.
“For some minutes we were just milling about seeing who needed assistance and what sort of assistance.”
Mr Ashburner said that the woman seated in front of him suffered a blow to the back of her head and was bleeding profusely just behind the ear.
“It was just oozy blood, she had a serious cut,” he said.
Alina Ritzinger, a 21-year-old Swiss backpacker, told the Herald Sun she felt a slight rattle, then heard a screech before luggage started falling all around her and the train veered off the tracks.
“That was the scariest thing, seeing things falling around everywhere,” she said.
“Everyone was screaming. We could hear children crying. We were quite lucky we were at the back, carriage G. We were on the train for 20 minutes and then we got out,” she said. “In the second carriage the people were trapped for quite a bit.”
She said the derailment made a loud noise, “like a scratching”.
“Before we knew it it was off the tracks, it was all a shock. It was scary,” Ms Ritzinger said.
She said the train had already been delayed by an hour and a half by the time she got on at Wagga.
The dead and injured were stretchered from the wreckage 500 metres to a row of waiting ambulances.
A makeshift triage centre was set up directly behind the BP truck stop on the Hume Highway.
A BP staff member said there were a lot of elderly passengers who appeared very frightened. He said he helped them out as best as he could, offering them to charge their phones and providing coffee and water.
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Some could be seen huddling in white blankets as others were being wheeled into the back of ambulances.
By 10.30pm on Thursday night, the injured had been transported to hospital and those who escaped without injury had been taken away in buses.
Emergency services remained at the scene, illuminated by massive flood lights, working to clear heavy wreckage around the tracks.
Fire fighters walked back and forth between the crash site and the triage centre.