The Brachina Smash and Joseph Heneker

Posted at 12:49 pm by heneker52, on March 31, 2021

[https://www.pichirichirailway.org.au/history/accidents/brachina-accident-1911]

**Brachina Railway accident 28 January 1911**

On February 2nd 1911, an Inquest was held on the death of a Samuel Edwin Rowe, who was killed in a railway accident at Brachina.

Brachina Gorge is in the Flinders Ranges, and is now a National Park visited by thousands of tourists each year.

Michael James Fitzgerald, a railway porter of Quorn, told the inquest that on January 28th he was an assistant guard on the train from Quorn to Hergott. He stated that everything was going well until within a mile of Brachina Siding. He heard two short whistles for the brakes. He rushed to the brakes and a Guard Taylor applied them. The engine and several of the trains trucks were seen lying off the line and broken up. There was much escaping of steam from the engine, and although Mr Rowe tried to see the driver in the cab, he couldn’t due to the amount of steam. But he did see the driver’s hand and arm hanging over the regulator. The men assumed that the driver was dead. Porter Rowe then rushed to Edeowie Siding and asked the station master there for a bicycle so he could ride to Quorn to report the accident and get help. His message was as follows “No. 5 down train is wrecked at 317 miles. Line washed away. Engine and several trucks derailed. Driver killed and fireman injured. Am awaiting instructions”.

JOSEPH HENEKER was a ganger on the great northern railway line and he was located at Edeowie Siding. At the inquest he stated that on January 28th he was at Edeowie Cottages when the No. 5 arrived. He helped to take out the provisions and other material. Later he saw Assistant Guard Fitzgerald coming along the line. When he asked him “what is the matter” the guard replied “The train is wrecked, and I want a bicycle to Edeowie.” Joseph gave him a bicycle and sent a carpenter with him. Joseph then got “all the gang together and trollied out to the scene of the accident. “I saw the engine in a mudhole under the line. I returned to the Cottages gathered all my tools and went back to he washaway and assisted to move debris from the line.

The Coroner Mr J Heath asked many questions of Jospeh Heneker, and his part in not checking the lines the train was to travel on, due to bad weather and risk of flooding. However Joseph was not convicted of any derelict duty, as he had never been told he needed to check the lines every day. Jospeh also stated that in the fourteen months he had been stationed at Edeowie he had never seen any flooding on the line, even in bad weather. The flooding was what had caused the brakes to fail and the train to derail. Joseph was not considered to be at any fault and the Coroner stated he could find no culpable neglect on the part of any officer of the Railways Department. He stated “I know too well the treacherous nature of that far northern country between Hookina and Blackfellow’s Creek. The line might be traversed in the morning, and a few hours after be washed away by flood waters from the hills, and as Mr Yeomans stated in his evidence, they scarcely ever come in the same place twice.

Author: heneker52

I previously worked as a Library Technician at the State Library of South Australia and then Noarlunga Library Services. I was lucky enough to work at the State Library in the Archives department, which is now a separate entity and housed at a suburban site. I've always loved English and Australian history, and began my Heneker family history in about 1980, before the advent of the internet, and now o with so many digitised records online there is a treasure chest of information out there, and it just keeps growing. One of the most wonderful treasures we have here in Australia is the Trove website, the free digitised newspapers of nearly every place in Australia, provided for free by the National Library of Australia. This has opened up so much day to day information for people searching for further information about their ancestors. I chose to write a blog as a way for me to put down a lot of information I had that wasn't necessarily easy to slot into a "family tree" as such. And I wanted to record some of the stories of the Heneker clan, and especially James Heneker (1826-1917) who arrived in South Australia as a 12 year old boy with his family. Like most of us in the genealogy community I have become obsessed and this is a never ending story. The community of bloggers, and also Facebook specialist pages has allowed me and many of us to learn from each other, and to use some of the many amazing tools that are out there now for us to use and enhance our research. My one wish?? dad Neville Laurence Heneker 1929 - 1987, this is for you, for all the things you told me, and the stories you related, often when we were up north in the Flinders Ranges, at Beltana, Hawker, Blinman and many other amazing places. I wish you were here, so I could share all this new information that has come to light. And of course for you Pa (Laurence Douglas Heneker), your stories were incredible and watching you sleep out under the stars at Arkaroola with a rock for your pillow is an image I will never forget. Oh if only we had digital cameras back then...I think of you both every time I write my words and read my books. I love you both.

Heneker – a Pioneering family from Kent to South Australia