By Mitchell Clarke
A passenger onboard the Sydney to Melbourne XPT train that derailed at Wallan last night said he was “fortunate” not to have been hurt in the incident.
Star Weekly employee Richard Sherman and his wife, Bev were returning from a week-long holiday in Sydney when the train derailed.
“We were going reasonably fast – I’d say about 100 kilometres – only reason I know that is because at one stage we were next to the Hume and we were keeping up with cars,” Mr Sherman recalled.
“We were just going along and all of a sudden there was a bang – almost like a tyre going off and then the whole thing moved sideways.
“We got thrown forward into our seats and down into the alcove and I knew immediately that it had gone off the rails.”
The couple, who were seated at the back of the second carriage, said they realised the severity of the incident “pretty much instantly”.
They said the carriage went “deathly silent” and became filled with dust as it came to rest on a 30 to 40 degree angle.
“People were lying on seats and there was an elderly guy who was sitting on the toilet that cut his head when it happened,” Mr Sherman said.
“We basically got up and looked around, asked if everyone was OK before we went to the back of the carriage and tried to open the doors.
“We knew there could possibly be more trains coming so we jumped out and helped people as they got up to make their way off the train.
“One of the staff members asked us ‘who told you to leave the train’, so we said ‘common sense told us to leave the train’.”
It’s understood 153 passengers and five crew members were on board the XPT service at the time.
An emergency triage area was established at a nearby BP service station to treat injured passengers.
The driver, a 54-year-old ACT man, and the train pilot, a 49-year-old Castlemaine woman, died at the scene.
Ambulance Victoria confirmed 12 people were transported to hospital – the most serious, a man in his 60s taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a stable condition with an upper body injury.
Police will investigate the cause of the incident in conjunction with National Rail Safety Regulator, Australian Transport Safety Bureau and WorkSafe.
Mr Sherman said he didn’t feel that the train was going “unusually fast” and said it was “hard to speculate” as to exactly what happened, but said the service was running two hours behind schedule.
“It stopped a number of times for whatever reasons, there were some problems with signals and it was running late so staff apologised over the speaker a few times,” he said.
“A staff member said ‘we are as frustrated as you are’ and said ‘hopefully nothing else happens’ – that message was about 10 minutes before the crash.”
“We’re just fortunate that we weren’t hurt especially when you see the degree of impact.
“They’re calling it a derailment but it was a crash really, the engine tipped on its side so it was quite major accident.”
Train services on the Seymour line will be replaced by coaches until further notice.
V/Line chief executive James Pinder said the incident occured on tracks running alongside the V/Line network, adding the company would be supporting the investigation.
V/Line has advised customers travelling between Donnybrook station and Southern Cross to consider using the Craigieburn line instead.
For updates on V/Line services, follow @vline_seymour on Twitter or call 1800 800 007.
-with Laura Michell
