Magical Christmas Train driver has no case to answer, despite obvious safety concerns, court rules

THE case against the driver of Darwin’s Magical Christmas Train who was involved in a crash that injured five people has been thrown out of court

The case against the driver of Darwin’s Magical Christmas Train who was involved in a crash that injured five people has been thrown out of court.

• Magical Christmas Train director fronts court over 2019 rollover
• Passenger ‘screamed’ to ‘slow down’ before Magical Christmas Train rolled in 2019, court hears

THE case against the driver of Darwin’s Magical Christmas Train who was involved in a crash that injured five people has been thrown out of court, despite obvious concerns about the safety of the attraction.

Company director Colin Campbell West was charged with dangerous driving and recklessly endangering serious harm after one of the train’s carriages rolled in the Botanic Gardens in December 2019.

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But after hearing submissions from Mr West’s lawyer Mary Chalmers on Monday, Local Court judge Elisabeth Armitage ruled he had no case to answer.

“There were clearly matters which were of concern about this train — as Ms Chalmers said, blind Freddy could have seen it,” she said.

“It is clear, it seems to me, that it was on and off paved surfaces from time to time throughout the entire circuit and the conditions of the paths that it was negotiating — with, for example, roots lifting up the bitumen and the like — just don’t seem to be appropriate for the length and weight and articulation of the vehicle.

“The particular turn in question, where the carriage tipped over was probably the most inappropriate location on the route, with it involving a hairpin, effectively, turn or a steep J turn from grass to bitumen where there was a lip, where there was a downhill slope on the grass towards the bitumen.”

But Ms Armitage said while the carriage “became immediately effectively unstable” in the conditions, there remained “a reasonable inference consistent with innocence open on the evidence”.

The Magical Christmas Train after the rollover in 2019.

“Even though the engine was moving forward at a slow speed, the effect of taking the tightest turn possible resulted in the rear carriage cutting the corner so that it was … crossing over a portion of ground that had a steeper negative slope to the ground that the engine travelled,” she said.

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“The effect of that is that the rear carriage slowed down and then picked up speed as the engine pulled it forward.

“It was that ‘catch up effect’ together with the negative camber, the weight of the passengers in the carriage, the lip of the bitumen as compared to the level of the grassed area, which all, in and of itself, was capable of explaining the rollover.”

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