On Christmas Eve, 1953, an express steam locomotive hauling 11 carriages left Wellington bound for Auckland. Many of the 285 passengers and crew were heading home for Christmas. At 10.21pm, the train reached the bridge over the Whangaehu River near Tangiwai, east of Ohakune. Minutes before, however, a pier of
the bridge had been taken out by a 6m-high wave of icy mud and rocks after a natural dam holding back the crater lake on nearby Mt Ruapehu collapsed. The driver and fireman slammed on the brakes, but the locomotive and six carriages plunged into the river.
All told, 151 people died; 20 of the bodies were never found. Over the following days, searchers found battered, muddy presents and toys on the banks of the river. Among those who died was Nerissa Love, the fiancée of cricketer Bob Blair, who was away playing in a test match in South Africa. When he went out to bat, just hours after hearing about her death, the crowd rose in silence. The Queen, who was visiting the country with Prince Philip, ended her Christmas broadcast from Auckland with a message of sympathy to the people of New Zealand. Tangiwai, which means “weeping waters”, remains the country’s worst rail accident.
