Maybe it was Gomez Addams’ predilection for dynamiting his locomotives in head-on collisions, pure destructive catnip for kids. Or maybe the exhilaration of standing on the platform just feet from the massive Geelong Flyer as it smashed through Werribee station at 80mph.

Either way, train derailments have offered this scribbler inordinate fascination forever. Disastrous, shocking and deadly as they might be, there’s a Colosseum allure to them. You can’t look away.

Geelong’s rail lines have posted their share of derailments, with their attendant terror, error, inquiries and blame-laying. And in true march of folly fashion, they can be traced back to the very first official train ride at Geelong.

The maiden voyage, on June 25, 1857, with Governor Sir Henry Barkly and 500 passengers in 10 carriages, travelled from Geelong to Williamstown and back. These included government bosses, train execs and shareholders, industrialists and the press.

It was a huge deal, with 2000 turning out for the official dinner that evening at the station. But the celebration was also a sombre affair because as the train chugged out of Geelong, no further than Cowie’s Creek, tragedy struck.

The railway company’s superintendent of locomotives, Henry Walters, was standing on the engine hanging on to an iron upright. As the train neared the bridge opposite the Ocean Child, Walters turned to check the rear of the train.

His head belted a timber beam on the bridge and he fell off the train. Despite the best efforts of doctors, he was dead inside four hours.

Telegraph Bridge and Birregurra crashes.

An inauspicious and tragic start, to say the least, but not nearly as spectacular as the “terrific explosion” that derailed the Ballarat-bound goods train passing under the Telegraph Bridge in 1873 at what was then called Kildare.

A burst boiler sent the loco careering onto its side in a patently tabloid image of destruction and crumpled metal. The tender was flung over the rails, six trucks and vans badly mangled – one landing upside down against the embankment.

Driver Auguste de Pazanan and fireman Thomas Macnamara were thrown out and fortunate not to sustain serious injury.

Much more serious was the Little River disaster of 1884, headlined in this paper: “Bloody carnage as two trains crash”.

Little River and West Coast Rail crashes.

Three people died, including a driver, and 20 were injured when a Melbourne-bound passenger train slammed into a Geelong-bound goods train. This was caused by an incorrect telegram sent by Werribee stationmaster Thomas Biddle’s daughter, who was in charge of the station while he went to choir practice. Biddle was charged with manslaughter but not found guilty.

Another derailment, at North Geelong in 1895, made a nice old mess of engine Y385, which a crew of workers were happy to pose in front of as they sought to haul it upright again.

More recently, in 1959, a goods train was derailed at Birregurra. No casualties, fortunately, but the bridge over the line was heavily damaged and demolished as a result.

Werribee station derailment aftermath 1979.

Twenty years later, a derailed grain train made an almighty mess at Werribee, smashed the bejaysus out of the station. Tripped over an old photo of people at the clean-up site, a long-haired yours truly among them, notepad in hand and camera battery over my shoulder, interviewing a station staffer witness.

In 1995, spied another train after it skipped the track about a kilometre closer to Geelong, a West Coast Rail job, when a handbrake was left engaged. A woman in a car waiting at a level crossing was killed. Awful stuff.

So little shortage of train mishaps down the years, and that’s not counting accidents with vehicles and pedestrians, of which there have been too many. In the meantime, here’s a little mystery to ponder:

When the Governor came to Geelong in 1853, by steamer, to lay the foundation stone of the Geelong station, he placed a time capsule bottle with a message, and gold, silver and copper coins, under said stone.

No idea if it’s been opened. Might be interesting to place the coins on the track. That was another old kids’ trick, when we tore ourselves away from Gomez and his wild-eyed, cigar-chomping incendiary exploits.

This article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser 29 January 2024