August 17, 2025 • 56 mins
On the morning of 18 January 1977, Blue Mountains commuters boarded their usual train, expecting nothing more than another routine ride to work. Instead, the Granville train disaster became Australia’s deadliest rail accident.
When a commuter train derailed and slammed into a road bridge, the collapse that followed trapped dozens in a nightmare of twisted metal and rubble. Rescue crews fought against the clock, and the nation watched in horror as the death toll rose.
Join Holly & Matthew as they revisit the events of that day — what went wrong, the incredible acts of bravery, and the lasting changes it brought to Australian rail safety.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-crap-in-australia--2968350/support.
When a commuter train derailed and slammed into a road bridge, the collapse that followed trapped dozens in a nightmare of twisted metal and rubble. Rescue crews fought against the clock, and the nation watched in horror as the death toll rose.
Join Holly & Matthew as they revisit the events of that day — what went wrong, the incredible acts of bravery, and the lasting changes it brought to Australian rail safety.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-crap-in-australia--2968350/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A strange, spiraling white light was spotted in the early
morning sky over Sydney, with even skeptical witnesses wondering if
it was a UFO. They were last seen on the
beach with a tall man and that's the best description
police have ever had of it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
More than seventeen years after Harold Holt disappeared into raging
surf at Chevy A Beach, his widow has finally revealed
his last romantic words docky, terrifying, mesmerizing. That's the way
a number of Australians have described the alleged encounter with
the Yowi.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's time for the Weed Crap in Australia podcast. Welcome
to the week Crap in Australia Podcast. I'm you host
Matthew Soul. Joining me for another episode is Holy Solt.
Hey everyone, and this is episode at three hundred and
(00:54):
seventy six. Now, just a little bit of housekeeping in
the weed world of weed crap, weird world, crap, weird
crappy world, weird crappy world in Australia. Just a little
bit of housekeeping. This is going to be the last episode,
not only of this series, but this is the last
(01:15):
episode before we transition over to three normal episodes in
one commentary a month for the foreseeable future, so Holly
has a chance to have arrest. All the feedback we've
gotten from all of our listeners is, hey, that sounds
like a great idea. Here are some movies that we
think you should watch. So that's been really great. Obviously
(01:38):
everyone's been very understanding, so that's wonderful. So if you
do have a movie, an Australian film has to be Australian.
You have an Australian film that you would like us
to watch and do a commentary on, please let us know.
But that is going to start next week. If these
sort of commentaries are not few completely understand, but I
would say just give a couple of try because not
(02:00):
only are you going to experience a little bit of
a different film culture then you're probably used to, it
also gives us a chance to riff a little bit
more and use a little bit of this accumulated knowledge
in a different context. So it still should be pretty fun,
and we're going to try and make them as informative
(02:22):
as possible. We are going to talk about the film,
the filmmakers, We're going to have trivia there, all of
that sort of stuff, so we're still going to try
and make it engaging. It's not just going to be
two people seeing on a couch watching a film.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
This is also the last mainline episode before we grab
an astray of Volume six releases. We have this one,
we have the commentary, and then Volume six is out.
So if you haven't pre ordered by visiting Impact Comics,
go do it now.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yep, Impactcomics dot com dot au. Just send them an
email Infodimpactcomics dot com dot au let them know you
would like to pre order a copy. The first twelve copies,
the first twelve copies that will be signed once they're gone,
they are gone. That's how we always do that. And yes,
Polly I added some more contributions yesterday because this shit
(03:10):
is down to the wire.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's how we do it on this show.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
You know, Bloo dumped another five hours into inter Volume six,
did a little bit of dressing up and whatnot. So yes,
that will be off to the printers very soon. All right,
ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it's time to take
a crack at the conclusion to the Grenville train disaster.
(03:34):
This is episode three hundred and seventy six take It
Away Holly across Sydney.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
A city wide call for blood donors went out at
the Red Cross Transfusion Center in the CBD. More than
one thousand people lined up that morning. Donations were sorted, processed,
and rushed to Westmead and Paramount of Hospitals, where survivors
were being triaged. By early afternoon, six survivors were confirmed
to still be alive under the rubble. They were found
(03:59):
between Cariages three and four, in the narrow air gap
left by steel bridge cross members that embraced the collapsing roof.
So where the bridge does usually you have like some
kind of arc, even if it's implied yep, that came down,
and that arc actually wedged well enough above the train
to give just that little bit of gap. The space
(04:22):
there was less than two feet high. It was a
race against time. Trained nurses and doctors crawled in, often
sideways or on their backs, to offer assistance. Ice was
packed around limbs, ivs were threaded under the concrete. Names
were asked and recorded. While some victims of the disaster
were able to remain calm, for others, the terror of
(04:44):
their situation often became overwhelming. At the rear end of
carriage three, two children, Christopher and Deborah, were found alive
in a small pocket alongside ten bodies. There were difficulties
reaching them, but they were in good spirits from what
I could find as I did my research through the
papers Bryan to put all of this stuff together. I
(05:06):
believe Christopher died of his injuries a few days later,
becoming the eighty third fatality.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Rescuers were able to determine by early afternoon that at
least six people were still alive beneath the collapsed lab.
We have been able to talk to them and have
been able to touch some of them. One rescuer said,
as if by a miracle. There was a twenty four
inch gap between the concrete slab and the floor of
the carriages. The steel cross members of the bridge are
stopping the slab going right to the carriage floors. The
(05:34):
majority of the injured a line in the aisle of
one carriage. At the end of a second car there
was a young boy and girl, Christopher and Deborah. Deborah
is in high spirits, but there are a lot of
difficulties in getting them out. We can also see at
least ten bodies underneath, he said. Quote from The Camera Times, Wednesday,
nineteenth of January nineteen seventy seven, page thirteen. Rescue a
(05:58):
massive team effort.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
We have another quote here.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
At the scene where a small boy, one of two children,
had been brought out alive after being trapped in the wreck,
later died. Inspector Williams had commented, you can imagine how
we feel. Quote from The Australian Women's Weekly, Wednesday, the
second of February nineteen seventy seven, page four hundred and eight.
A Australia's worst trained disaster.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And those are the two sources that I could put
together to see what happened to Christopher. If anyone knows
Christopher and he survived, please let me know.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I would have to assume that it's going to be
one or two things. Either Christopher did fall victim to
things like toxic shock, you know, being stuck in a
cramped position for such a long time, that's a possibility.
You're also looking at things like dust inhalation, debri inhalation,
the gas gas. You know, there are a lot of
(06:50):
circumstances there where a young child could find themselves even
though they're rescued, dying a few days later. That being
said as well, often thinks get confused and reported reporting,
especially in this era, gets confused, So yeah, I would
probably echo your statements as for everyone if anyone is
aware of this case. Did Christopher actually pass away? Or
(07:13):
is this an example again of whispers going back and
forth and information being misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
The first major slab of bridge concrete was successfully removed
from the train at n forty pm that night. It
took coordinated effort from multiple cranes and careful monitoring of
structural loads. As slabs were lifted, more bodies were found,
more cries were heard, and more spirits broke. The rescue
efforts continued through the night and into the next day.
(07:43):
The lights brought in to illuminate the disaster site. Wednesday,
January nineteen, the last of the injured had been removed alive.
One man, Brian Gordon, twenty eight, had been trapped for
ten hours before being rescued. He died on Friday, January one. Sadly,
he succumbed to his injuries on Friday's January twenty first.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
The last person taken alive from the Grenville train smash,
mister Brian Gordon, twenty eight of the new planes, died today.
Mister Gordon was trapped in the wreckage for ten hours
before being rescued and flying to hospital with leg, chest
and internal injuries. The toll rose to eighty two today
with the death also of mister Brian Knight, forty six,
of Point Claire, near Gosford. Quote from the Camera Times, Saturday,
(08:28):
twenty second of January nineteen seventy seven, pay j eight
Whole Reaches eighty two.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Police cordoned off the entire area. The Army was called
in to build barricades and secure the site. Journalists, television
crews and radio stations formed the suburb. Reporters gathered outside
the train drivers home, prompting a furious reaction from the
Locomotive engine Men's Union, which threatened to stop all train
(08:54):
traffic in New South Wales if the press didn't back off.
Remember those grand old days were and the unions actually
had power.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, yeah, those those days. It's only long gone or
well no, actually, to be fair, last year there was
industrial action for the warehouse workers working for very supermarket
chains in Australia. They actually had a good union that
makes to get them a better deal. So in some
cases you know there is still unions out there doing
(09:22):
the best they can for their members. There's also a
lot of dodger unions too.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Unfortunately, I feel like the second category is more often
than the.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
First, but I think it's absolutely the right thing to
do in their circumstances actually create a barrier between the
press and the pain conductor. Now, whether the contrained conductor,
when no doubt we're going to go into this, had
acted appropriately or inappropriately. I can't think of a single
(09:52):
person on this planet who would want to be in
that position, and chances are their mental health will suf
to the point where they won't be able to continue
living regardless. So I think number one, it's important to
wait till all the answers come through first before fingers
start being pointed. That's what an inquest is for. And
(10:15):
I think secondly that the media are a bunch of
bloodthirsty mongrels who will often form a pack and absolutely
destroy people in their pursuit of making money. And I
think that really applies to most Australian media these days.
And I think to a certain extent back then, again,
(10:37):
going all the way back to the first year of
week crap in Australia when we talked about the disappearance
of Azaria Chamberlain. The way that Lindy Chamberlain was dealt
with was absolutely disgusting, and only a couple of decades
later you also had the Falconio disappearance and the way
that the media treated Lee's yep was also absolutely disgusting.
(10:59):
So yeah, and media pylon makes absolute sense. But the
more sensible people would say, hey, let's clean up the
disaster first before we start lane blame.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I mean, it's even worse than the modern era where
you have internet sluse out there, minute one training apiece
together what's going on and basically doing trial by meat
by social media, which is even faster than regular trail
by media.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
That same day, the Australian Journalists Association called the train
drivers irresponsible for objecting to the media presence. By nightfall,
union pressure had succeeded. The reporters left.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Telephone calls to the old Swints home We're being intercepted
today after the driver's wife received a series of abusive messages.
The Railway Union had advised the driver to make no
statement on the crash, but mister Booth passed these quotes
from Olin Switz to reporters. Today. He is not God.
He couldn't do anything about it. We want to express
our deeper sympathy and love for those people affected. We
(12:00):
wish we could shout it from the highest building. Mister
Boos said that the driver and his sobbing wife had
only today been informed of the magnitude of the disaster,
the worst rail crash in Australian history. Quote from the
Papua New Guinea Post Courier, Friday, the twenty first January
nineteen seventy seven, page six. Train band is Off.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Public grief turned to fury when it emerged that the
Bowl Street Bridge had been structurally modified decades earlier without
adequate engineering foresight. The extra concrete added to raise the
motorway and placed a dangerous load on its supports. When
the supports gave way, they took the vehicles, the concrete
and all their deadly forced straight down onto the carriages.
(12:43):
The bridge dropped over five rail lines, but not evenly.
That part of the bridge closest to the embankment fell
on an angle. A small area of the carriages that
weren't quite as squashed as those on the other side
of the train. It was in this space where most
survivors were found. Further fury erupted when survivors learned that
(13:03):
the second of track where the derailment began had not
been properly maintained. It had been signed off as fine
to be operated on only a month prior, but closer
inspections showed that fastness sickering the rails to the wooden
sleepers had degraded. This allowed the track to widen under
pressure from the locomotive's wheels, letting the engine slip off
(13:23):
the rails.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Initially, it's it really doesn't look like it was the
train conductor's fault whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
No, so this wasn't like a one and done, Like
one train just managed to shove the sleeper out of
the way and it did it. It was like, yeah,
I think it's like three dozen trains every couple of
hours across those rails, pushing it microscopically.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
When it comes to industrial disasters, especially ones of these magnitude,
it's always death by a thousand cuts. It's that slow
degradation until you get to the point where, oh shit,
something's scorn really really wrong here. It can be something
as simple as not using enough different batches when when
(14:05):
using bolts to fasten something together.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh, it can be even more simple than that, not
putting enough lubricant on an airplane tailscrew.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Going back to our threadbow disaster, a leaking pipe slowly
eroding away an entire mountain, yep, you know it's these
sort of things. You know, maintenance is extremely important. Our
friends over in America would know this as their infrastructure
is slowly crumbling around their ears. For a certain extent.
Some parts of Australian infrastructure not doing too good either,
(14:35):
But nowhere in the world are you going to find
as much degrading infrastructure as you would over in America.
That's why more often than not their bridges collapse. And
you know, actually it's funny. Just recently, I was watching
a video on an amusement park ride at Disney Holly.
You remember, as you have been on it twice now
(14:56):
the Tower of Terror.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Is this going to give for me another reason to
hate that fucking ride.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Well, at least in the American version, which I believe
is the California park. What they had, you know, and
this was what I was alluding to earlier they hadn't
used enough different batches of bolts, and they hadn't replaced
the bolts often enough, and so one batch of bolts
(15:23):
was dodgy, and so what happened is those bolts failed.
So you know that the fun bit where it sort
of drops you and then pulls you back up, and
then you know, keeps going up and down, up and down.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
You say fun, but that is not my experience had fun.
I did not either.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Time I had fun. That's good fun horrible. I hate it.
I got photos of you having lots of fun.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I hate it so much.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So when it does that that first initial little drop down, well,
for the four people who were on this ride at
the time, that little drop have to going, so it
was just that full drop. And there are other safety
measures in place that prevented it from being a disaster,
even though some people got injured. But that's what I'm
(16:11):
talking about. It's those little twiny things that you want
to think about that do need to be addressed. And
in the case of the train disaster here, someone probably
looked at it and thought, well, it has moved an inch,
or it has moved a centimeter, it has moved a millimeter,
it's not that big a deal today, And then a
month after that they're like, well, it's moved a millimeter,
(16:33):
it's not that big a deal of today, And so
you keep having that attitude until finally it falls apart
on you, and usually two disastrous consequences, like what has
happened here.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
If it wasn't for two engineering failures, the rail line
and the bridge, only eight people would have died. But
because that bridge came down.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
It it's eighty two.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, it's actually eighty four.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Sorry, eighty four. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Premier never Ran immediately called for a full public judicial inquiry,
announced on January nineteenth. It would be led by District
Court Chief Judge Justice Staunton. The inquiry was open to
the public and set to begin the week of January
twenty seven. I always find it very interesting when all
of the information that they need for an inquiry can
(17:21):
be found within was that ten days.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I mean, this is also the point though, where if
you're dealing with trains, if you're dealing with public infrastructure,
there are going to be monthly reports in order to
facilitate that sort of inquiry. It's not as difficult I
think what you're if I may I think what you're
alluding to there is that, hey, all this information suddenly
(17:47):
eppicate out of nowhere for the inquest. Is that what
you're alluding to.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
If it took them two days three days to get
people out of the carriage, that drops them to about
seven days to gather all their evidence, build their reports,
analyze the data and then present it. I mean, which
is five working days.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I mean that's quick. But is that quick because the
public is like banging for the blood of a train
conductor and his life is now at threat? Or is
it quick because they wanted to cover it up.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I don't think it's a cover up. I just think
that people are very very quick at answering questions on
these when maybe they should take a few more months
and actually look for the properances.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And how do you explain that to the Australian public.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
We're looking into it.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
It's not that huh Holly. You have done three hundred
and seventy six episodes of the Weird Crap in Australia,
and I can think.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Of at least paces we're waiting another month would have
made a massive difference.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
You. I'm not denying that you have written six you
have majority written six books for week crap in Australia.
You're probably Australia's most prominent social historian at this point
in your life. Right, I'm bragging, right, and this is
me saying that I'm bragging for you. Do you really
(19:13):
believe that the Australian public would have turned around and said, oh,
we understand, you've got a lot of information to go through.
We're just going to be quiet and we're going to
wait for you to do that.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So then what you do is you tell the public evidence.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Chet running away, start running away.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Running away, answer the question running away, a questioning to
get that month.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I think you instinctively want to blame I just the government,
and I'm and you know me, I will be the
first to ascribe blame where it belongs, especially when it's
a government. I fucking hate government and I love to
talk about how how ineffectual it is or how slow
it takes to get things done. But let's not dance
(20:03):
around the question. The Australian public wanted blood and they
wanted answers, so public officials could either take their time
to conduct it properly, or they could turn around and
protect the lives of people that would have been targeted
by vigilanti attacks.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So what you're saying is they didn't do it properly.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
No, I don't think they would have. I think you
need more than five days. But does you have to
remember that at some point the Australian public does have
to take responsibility for the way we want things conducted.
If the Australian public turns around and at that point
is baying for blood, as government officials, you have to
(20:49):
make a move quickly. Now, as government officials, you would
expect them to have courage to be able to explain
this to a population. But as we've said before, and
I'll say this again, people a dumb, panicky, stupid animals
and when they feel angry and when they want names
and results, I mean, only a few weeks ago we
covered the riots of Para Matter. So while I totally
(21:13):
agree with you, sorry Cranella, paramatter Para matter. Right. So
while will I totally agree with you in the respect
that five days is not long enough and it does
allow for for misinformation, it does allow for a poorly
informed in quest, I'm not going to deny that whatsoever.
But I think it's also important to give some responsibility
(21:37):
to the Australian public for being reactionary in these circumstances.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I don't know, it's a good hefty amount of blame
should go to tribo media.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, but who's buying the newspapers.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Those headlines out there that sell the newspapers.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
You know, who's consuming There has to be some sort
of person I said some.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
The inquiry's term of reference would allow it to examine
not only the derailment but the entire state of the
New South Wales railway system. Justice Staughton would be assisted
by two independent technical assessors, one from another state's railway
and one from private railway engineering. Railway absolutely was from Victoria.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yes, they would have been like hot digity dog, I
get just shit on New South Wales.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I take a crack at Sydney. Let's go.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Fuck. I'm good. I knew I knew it was going
to be a Victoria.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You also have done three hundred and seventy five episodes
of this podcast. If you can't see that pattern coming,
no one can.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
And I did cut you off there. Do you want
to finish that paragraph?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
The other assessor was from a private was a private
railway engineer from industry and academia in order to guard
against bias.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
So you had one from another state who was absolutely
looking for any mistakes possible, and you had an academic
advisor as well.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Someone who is an actual engineer and who could read
what was written.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
The report recommended that the Public Transport Commission formulate and
implement a clearly defined policy on regular track inspections and
give close consideration to speed limits applying to Class forty
six locomotives, the type involved in the Grenville crash. The
report said the Bold Street bridge which collapse on the
Blue Mountains commuter train was not designed to stand on
(23:27):
one set of trestles, and its collapse was caused by
the removal of montrestle by the locomotive. It is said that,
by an unfortunate quirk of circumstances, the actual weight of
the span which fell on the carriages of the train
was approximately double the weight envisaged by the designers. Quote
from The Camera Times, Wednesday, first June nineteen seventy seven,
(23:49):
page three, Grenville Disaster Inquiry. So Holly, if I'm understanding
this correctly, what has happened here is you've got a
locomotive that is perhaps going too fast for its size,
which was the regulations, not the train conductor's fault.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It was under the speed limit.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
It hits a well worn piece of track that was loose.
That starts the chain event for the crash. The crash
hits a bridge that is not supported as it should be,
and then the bridge collapses. Yes, am I right? So
(24:28):
at no point can you blame the train conductors for
that at all?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
No, And because we watched Final Destination like three days ago.
I'm sitting here, you're running through that, and I'm just
seeing the screw in the in the the sleeper just
wiggling free as the train comes along and spreading the rail, and.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, it's all it takes. It all, that's that's that's
all it takes. Is Sometimes just that little tiny, innocuous
thing that you never think about. They can absolutely lead
to disaster. Like that's why the Shinkinson in in Japan,
the bullet train, their systems are very very closely monitored.
(25:07):
Maintenance has conducted consistently and very professionally, because those suckers
if they derail, that's a disaster. You know, they're speeding bullets.
It's three hundred size of a locomotive three hundred and.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Twenty three hundred and thirty kilometers an hour, weighing a
couple of one hundred tons. Yeah, that's going to kill everybody.
The Staunton Inquiry officially commenced on the twenty seventh of
January nineteen seventy seven. The scope was broad backed by
public pressure and the scale of the devastation. It quickly
zeroed in on the track condition, the structural weight of
the Bold Street Bridge, and the design of the carriages.
(25:45):
Each element, it would find, played a role not just
in the derailment, but in how deadly it became. By Thursday,
January twentieth, the names of the first thirty two victims
were released to the public. The remaining names followed in
the the next day. Among them were office workers, school children, mmuteras,
tourists and retirees. They came from all walks of life.
(26:09):
Within weeks, it was confirmed that the bridge had not
been built to modern safety coats and by modern only
nineteen seventies. Originally constructed in nineteen fifties, the Ball Street
Bridge had stood too low for the street level traffic
it was meant to carry. To compensate, road engineers had
added a thick concrete popping to the roadway, raising the
street type by nearly a meter, but adding literally hundreds
(26:30):
of tons to the bridge's weight and the supports meant
to be holding it up. Those supports were sheared off
in the initial derailment when the locomotives scraped into them
at roughty fifty kilometers an hour. The bridge didn't fall immediately.
It hovered precariously for fifteen seconds, then collapsed in one
crushing blow. There was the issue of the speed of
(26:51):
the train, which was quickly sorted clear the driver of
any wrongdoing. Calculations indicated he was traveling at only seventy
eight kilometers an hour on an eighty kilometer hour zone,
easily within the train's limits. Then game the issue of
the carriages. In the years before the crash, the Public
Transport Commission had been retrofitting old compartment style carriages into
(27:14):
more modern, open plan ones. The old design featured thick
internal walls separating small passenger compartments. When the bridge collapsed,
these might have acted as internal bracing, potentially shielding some
passages from the full weight of the bridge and the roof,
But in the newer open plan design there were no
(27:34):
dividing walls, only very thin side panels in the outer shell.
When the concrete fell, there was nothing to disperse the
load on the roof the carriage. Roof simply caved in,
and the passengers below had no pants. One section of
carriage floor was crushed to under a meter in height
between the roof and the wheels. In some places, the
space between the roof and the floor was two feet tall.
(27:57):
In others, the weight of the bridge had not only
showed the roof down to floor level, but the wheels
had buckled underneath, dropping the floor level down further. Passengers
inside the areas with clearance were found with their shoulders
beneath their knees. Some died sitting upright, unmoving, Others trapped
for hours succumbed to crush injuries after being freed. By
(28:20):
the time the last slap of concrete was removed in
the rear of the carriage at six am on Thursday,
the twentieth of January, the death toll had risen to eighty,
with three more to die over the coming days. In
twenty seventeen, an unborn child whose mother perished in the
wreck was formally recognized as the eighty fourth victim. In
(28:40):
the weeks following the disaster, the Rand New South Wales
government offered any assistance it put to the victims and
their families.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Mister Rands that the state government would pay for the
funerals of the victims and survivors would not be charged
for ambulance or hospital expenses. Is that all claims will
be processed without delay and formalities will be kept to
a minimum. Quote from the Papua New Guinea Post Courier, Thursday,
twentieth January nineteen seventy seven, page four Train Toll eighty
(29:08):
Premiere Wraps Railways.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Public grief turned to civic anger when the full engineering
facts emerged. Granville had not just been a tragedy, it
had been waiting to happen across the state. More than
fifty rail bridges of similar design were identified for urgent review.
The Bold Street Bridge itself was rebuilt as a single
spam bridge with no center support pylons, making a similar
(29:33):
disaster in that spot structurally impossible. Rail maintenance practices in
New South Wales underwent a wholesale overhaul rior to Granville.
Maintenance had been scaled back consistently since World War II,
due to financial constraints and labor shortages. The disaster shattered
that penny pinching policy. The Public Transport Commission of New
(29:56):
South Wales implemented strict inspection protocols and began reinforcing bridges
and railbeds statewide. In the forty five years since. Derailments
have still occurred, with thirteen occurring from nineteen seventy eight
to the present day, but none of those where the
causes known have been linked to poor maintenance. The causes
range from everything from landslides to bridge washouts, to operate
(30:18):
an error and in one case, a driver's fatal heart attack.
Mechanical failure remains.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Red he Premier Ran said the Grandfell disaster would throw
light on what was wrong with the state railway system.
He said, I do not think we have to look
at every mile of track or locomotive or railway carriage
to learn that over the past decade or so the
New South Wales railways have been allowed to run down.
It is not part of my role to be pointing
(30:45):
the finger anywhere except to say this. I think this
inquiry is wide enough to underline and emphasize that which
we know, and that is that the railways of New
South Wales are in ramshackle condition and it is a
several years program to modernize the system. The full tragedy
is that so many people had to be killed and mained.
Emphasize what should have been obvious for the past decade.
(31:07):
Quote from the part of New Guinea Career Posts Thursday
the twentieth or January nineteen seventy seven, page four train
toll eighty Premier wraps railways.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
So from the end of World War Two to the
early nineteen sixties, that was a labor New South Wales YEP.
From the early nineteen sixties to the nineteen I think
it was mid nineteen seventies that was a liberal government.
Then labor got back in for two three years before
this happened, which is why I ran said turning around,
going the Liberals did it?
Speaker 1 (31:37):
I mean the Liberal Party playbook is to take money
out of infrastructure to put it into the hands of
private companies. If you support the Liberal Party, I'm not
going to tell you not to support them if you
believe they have good policies. You believe they have good policies.
But the fact remains that Telstra was a government run
(31:59):
service until the Liberal Party.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Telcom was good, tellstrue, not so.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Much quantas was public until it wasn't anymore, and then
the services turned to shit. You know, we have all
of these examples of the Liberal Party pulling money out
of infrastructure, out of services, and they handed over to
private companies, and you know this is what happens. You
keep kicking that down the line until eventually you can't
(32:27):
anymore because eighty two people die, eighty four people die. Sorry.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
In true politician fashion, the leader of the New South
Wales opposition came out swinging back.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Sir Eric's comments came soon after he learned to the
statement by the Premier, mister Wren that the New South
Wales railways were in a ramshackle condition after a decade
of neglect. Sir Eric said the figures speak for themselves.
There was only one fatality in eleven years on the
railway in the Labor government's first eight months of office.
Seventy now and now eighty lives have been lost. He
(32:57):
said the figures showed enormous amounts of money had been
spent on maintenance in the past. Sir Eric said that
mister Man would have to be careful who wanted to
engage in this kind of political mud slinging because two
can play at this game. Quote from the Canberra Times, Friday,
twenty first of January nineteen seventy seven, page three. The
Grenville disaster will as criticized over comments.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
The reason why there was only eleven there was only
one fatality in eleven years of the Liberal government is
because of the twenty odd years of Labor putting money
into the infrastructure, and then as soon as the Liberals
start taking it out, there's a big disaster.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I mean that being said, Holly, do you think the
Australian public again sat there and went, oh, actually no,
like based on this eleven years of negligence. This accident
has happened within the first eight months, but it was
waiting to happen regardless. No, what do you think they
blamed the Liberal government of the Labor government at the time.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
No, but this is me unfucking history and I'm pointing
out a problem.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
You know, like, regardless of what you're presenting, which is
absolutely factually accurate. Do you think people saw it that way? No?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
The legacy of Granville wasn't just steal and concrete. It
was people every January. Since nineteen seventy seven, survivors and
families of the dead have gathered at the site. Eighty
four roses are tossed onto the tracks, one for every
life lost. In two thousand and seven, Clark was added
to the new bridge not only in honor of the dead,
(34:28):
but also to commemorate the extraordinary work of the rescue teams,
railway workers, police, firefighters, SES and the dozens of volunteers
who clawed through the rubble for days. The judicial inquiry
would take months, but its recommendations became policy.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Among p legacies are reinforcement and redesign of rail bridges
across the state, immediate reforms to rail inspection and maintenance,
reintroduction of the car put mentalization, carriage designs for crash survivability,
national understanding, and new tree protocols for crush syndrome. Professional
guidelines for seeing safety during rescue operations involving LPG or
(35:06):
electrical infrastructure was.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Also the introduction of the first of the metallic carriages
came out after this right so that it was all
in nineteen ninety eight. The disaster was memorialized in the
docudrama The Day of the Roses, A powerful and graphic
depiction of the events that's donned the nation.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
The classic Australian docu drama were.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Really good at them, more drama than.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Document But yeah, what was it. I think it was
a year after the Threadbow disaster that the Channel ten
went scrambling to quickly get out of three part mini series.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I think so when I'm actually quite surprised that the
train secre up in Queensland hasn't already had three.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, that surprises me as well. I suppose they're being
They're probably very reluctant to touch upon it too much
because you know, like you look at all the channels
in Australia, they all lean pretty conservatively and I don't
think they want to piss off their their viewers, would
be my guess true.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
In twenty twelve, the History Channel Australia aired The Train,
a documentary dedicated to the technical and human aspects of
the crash. In twenty twenty one, you Can't ask that
included a Grandville survivor in its special Undisaster Victims, So
if you wanted to go back and watch that. In
May twenty seventeen, on the fortieth anniversary of the tragedy.
(36:31):
The New South Wales premiere Gladys Beregiclian formally apologized to
the victims and families. That same year, the Unburnt the
Unborn Child was added as the eighty fourth victim, bringing
closure to one final overlooked lot. Grahamville did more than
change infrastructure. It changed how Australia understood engineering responsibility, crisis
(36:53):
response and the hidden cost of budgetary neglect. Twenty twenty three,
when the newly elected Mins Labor government undertook a full
audit of the rail network, it found that the outgoing
administration had been deferring essential maintenance for years.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
That is, once again the Liberal Party. That's what it is, folks.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You know, every single time you voted me in, you
voted me in for this kind of thing to happen.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
They're going to pull money out of maintenance. They're going
to pull money out of infrastructure. They do it every
single time. I mean that being said, now, I think
we've seen the death of the Liberal Party in this country.
And that may be a pretty bold claim to make,
but I just don't understand how so. What happens after
an election is you're giving campaign funds by the amount
(37:40):
of votes you have received and so what Holly, you
would say that after this election. Historically they've never received
less votes in their entire sitting life.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Either they're going to have to go to Daddy Murdock
for more money or they are screwed.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
You know. And I don't think that the Liberal Party
will be considered a viable option in this country for many,
many years. I think we'll end up seeing at least
another term, certainly of an Albernesi run labor government. And
at the end of the day, you know, there are
people who are going to want the Labor government to
(38:16):
do things quicker, and they are going to want to
see them done more publicly. That is not how politics works.
This is never how politics have worked. But I think
that you'll find that there'll be more money spent on
infrastructure over those couple of years then there will be
when the inevitably the Labor Party gets kicked out for
(38:37):
whatever comes next. And I don't think that's going to
be a Liberal Party. I think that's going to be
a new party. I think, just like when Menzies had
to reform after the defeat of the Australia Party, I
think the Liberal Party will have to reform under a
new label as well as conservatives try and work out
what their potential future is in the political landscape. But
(38:59):
as Whole just pointed out very astutely, there not only
did you have a pullout of maintenance budget in the
nineteen seventies, you had the exact same thing happened over
the decades of liberal run New South Wales government. I mean,
the facts of the facts, the truth doesn't care about
how you feel about it. If you're a liberal supporter
(39:20):
and you're like, you know, screw you guys and your bias, well, you.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Know, why are you still listening to this?
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yes, go find the money that you said that you
think that was meant to be spent. Where that money go?
Why were those budgets decreased?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I'm going to say it's being spent on that second
airport and the ten time priced tag that paid for it.
This deferment risked the same kind of failure Granville had
already paid for it. Works were ordered across the entire
network as a result. In between June and December twenty
twenty three, well the nineteen hundred high priority defects were
(39:55):
corrected and eight hundred kilometers of rail track was repaired
six months ahead of schedule and under budget. Is that
ever a good thing? Question mark?
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Might a note.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Every improvement since every bridge retrofit, every schedule and inspection,
every maintenance record kept a standard owes a debt to
the eighty four who never made it to Sydney that
Tuesday morning. For the survivors, grief didn't end when the
last slab of concrete was lifted. Many bore physical injuries
for the rest of their lives, amputations, spinal injuries, collapsed lungs,
(40:34):
and internal trauma. The psychological damage lingered even longer. The
scent of diesel, the rumble of a passing train, or
even the summer heat of January could pull them straight
back under the weight of concrete and steel. Many survivors
describe vivid memories not just of pain or terror, but
of extraordinary endurance, whispering to others, pin nearby, holding the
(40:56):
hands of strangers, keeping hope alive in the dark. Some
survivors and rescuers found each other years later at memorials,
having only known each other as a voice in the rubble,
or a hand reaching through twisted metal bonds formed in
that chaos became something sacred, beyond trauma, almost spiritual. There
(41:18):
were also moments of gallows humor and quiet bravery. One
young girl wrapped in the wreckage kept cracking jokes to
keep the spirits up of those around her, even as
people died beside her. She didn't stop. Rescuers never learned
her name, but her voice was a beacon in the
One police officer told a reporter that he had never
(41:39):
seen courage like it, not in his entire career. But
it wasn't just the volunteers on the ground that made
a difference. In the days after the disaster, over a
thousand people queued to give blood at the Transfusion Center
in Sydney. A concert was held at Paramount Shopping Center
to raise money for the victims, with entry fees of
(41:59):
a doll official ldren and two dollars for adults or
six and twelve dollars. In twenty twenty two, the money
went to the Grenville Train Disaster Victims Appeal Fund, intended
to provide long term support. Some projected it would need
to run for fifteen to twenty years. But there's always
a ready scumbag looking to make a few dollars in
a disaster.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
A thief had ransacked the cars of rescue workers at
the Grenville train crash site, unaware that they had been
digging for the body of a close relative. A Sydney
newspaper set today. The man asked the newspaper today to
help him return the stolen goods. He said he had
designed to give them back after learning also that he
had taken a wallet belonging to a Salvation Army welfare
officer who had helped him for years. In a telephone
(42:43):
talk with a reporter, the man solved and said, have
done a terrible and heartless thing. I took a transistor,
radio and a wallet from a car, then later realized
it belong to one of the kindest men I have
ever met. When I learned a close relative was killed
in the train smash and realized I had robbed the
men who recovered them, I was sick with shame. The man,
father of six and unemployed since October, said the temptation
(43:06):
to ransack unlocked cars on the disaster site had been
too strong. A Salvation Army worker Today said he had
found his stolen belongings squeezed into the letterbox at his
home this morning. Quote from the camera Time, Saturday, twenty
second of January nineteen seventy seven, page eight Conscience one. Look,
I have no problem with that.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
You realize that he fucked up.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
We have to give people roads back. Yeah, wof do
you know? Obviously there are certain circumstances where there is
no roadback. We are very aware of that, considering we
have talked about killers and child abductors and things like that.
But for people like this gentleman here, who obviously realized
(43:48):
what he had done and did his best to make
things right, there has to be a roadback for those
sort of people.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
The Governor General of New Zealand centificial condolences. The Queen
of Being England personally inquired into the situation, asking to
be updated regularly, and across Australia, families who'd never heard
of Branville before now knew it intimately as a place
of loss, of survival and of cautionary lessons. In the
years since, survivors and the families of victims have become
(44:17):
tireless advocates for rail safety. They've lobbied governments to impose
stricter penalties for negligence to maintain rigorous maintenance schedules, and
to fund emergency training for first responders. They've also pushed
for the creation of a rail safety ombersman, an independent watchdog,
to ensure another Grandville can never happen again. The site
(44:40):
itself is quiet now. Trains still run through Granville Station,
passing beneath a redesigned Bold Street bridge, this time without
its central supports. But every eighteenth of January, families gather,
tossing eighty four roses onto the trucks. Some come with walkers,
others with strollers. Some bring faded newspaper clippings, others bring grandkids.
(45:02):
They share stories about uncles they never met, about friends
who saved them, about hands that held theirs under concrete.
A plaque installed into two thousand and seven honors the
railway workers and rescue crews. Further signage describes a sequence
of events the victims and the changes made sense, and
though time has passed, Granville remains an open wound in
(45:24):
Australia's history. It stands as a stark reminder systems only
hold when they're maintained, the corners cut to save money
can kill, and that every warning ignored is a tragedy.
Waiting to happen. It also reminds us what courage looks
like in a surgeon crawling into wreckage with a hack saw,
in a stranger tying a rope around a dangling car
(45:45):
so people inside could escape. That's the legacy of Granville.
Eighty four lives ended, but thousands are changed, and with
every inspection completed, every bridge reinforced, and every track replaced,
they are quietly on it again.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Various stute observation there, Holly, I agree with you entirely,
A very nice sentiment. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's it
for the Greenville crash disaster. We hope you have been
well informed. And just one more quick reminder, I don't forget.
Next week we are doing our commentary. The film will
be telling three The Mars Superials are first in our
(46:22):
ospolitation commentary series, so again, give it a chance. You
can watch that movie beforehand, or you can watch it
with us with the commentary track plane in the background.
You can check that out on the Amazon Prime streaming service,
or you can grab the disc from gb hi FI
(46:43):
Orumbrella dot com dot Au and support our locals and
physical media at the same time. All right before we
let you go. Don't forget. You can contact us via
social media or email. On social media just typing we
Crapping Austraya into the search bar of your social media
of choice. Our email addresses we crap in Australia at
gmail dot com. Keep those emails coming. We'd love to
(47:05):
hear your feedback and your commentary on our episodes, as
well as what you'd like us to cover in the future.
You can also help support the show by joining our Patreon.
For only five dollars a month, you get access to
bonus minisodes as well as these episodes unedited and uncut. Sorry,
as well as these episodes uncut, you can say and
(47:26):
get these mainline episodes uncut and add free. You can
also help us out by checking out our book series,
Impactcomics dot com dot Au is where you can pick
up physical copies in Australia. You can grab the physical
edition from our print on demand service Lulu dot com overseas,
and you can check out the digital version on the
(47:48):
Amazon Kindles store. And, last but not least, if you
want to weed crap In Australia T shirt or other
pieces of merch, head over to our red Bubble and
Tea public stores, and as is custom, we give Holly
the final words go.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
By book six.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, well, Holly, that sounds.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Jill, Jill.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
If you want to shut the time on it, tell
your funny story, lady, and before we let you go.
The reason that Holly used to drag me along the
conventions where she had to sell her books, is it, Holly?
Is that Holly is terrible at selling herself and selling
her books.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
As if anyone who listens to this.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Actually, no, you were really good at it in a
Gamma con.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
In because I'd had by that point about fifteen years
of retail experience.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
All right, So sell me the book, Holly. Don't just
say boma boopees in a very meek voice. Sell me
your book. Why should people buy volume six?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Do you want like the pitch that I give a
conventions or do you want the pitch that I'd give
the listens?
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Sell it? Then you do it? How you feel?
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Hey? How you going there? Are you interested in Australian history?
Do you like true crime? Do you like aliens? Do
you like monsters? We've got the book for you. We
Crap in Australia. Volume six is available on September one.
Inside you'll find lots of true stories about our history,
both the official and the unofficial versions. Why don't you
(49:13):
head on over got Lulu dot com for the print version.
We've got Amazon dot com for the electronic No.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Thanks, I don't read books anyway.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
That's this, at which point I then go on to
sell the podcast.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
U dear, what is some of your favorite subjects from
this particular volume, Holly.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Jesus, I only looked at the tables contours last night
and I can't even remember a single thing.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
That's well, I'll let me remind you of a couple there.
We covered the brown Out Strangler of Melbourne, the garage girls.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Of World War iiwo Yeah, Who's serious?
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Is who serious? As a pop culture one we covered,
we went back and did Wolf Creek as just the
film itself. We covered the Ferals, the children's television show Lift.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Off Power Break.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
It was a big one, that one. Yeah, so lots
of World War II history in that book.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
And we did the UFO encounter on the American base
in the West a straight too.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yes, Little Anny saw her UFO. Yes, yes, me personally,
I happen to like the deep dive that we did
into children's programming. I watched Bluie for the first time
when we did those episodes and ended up just putting
it on in the background more often than not and
going back through Liftoff, you know, there was the biggest
(50:32):
thing for me is that people, in my opinion, have
it asked backwards when it comes to the Little Puppet
ec They're like, oh, you know, he has no face.
It's all. It's all terrifying. When you have a little
bit of an understanding about child psychology, you would be
stocked at what children can project onto those sort of objects,
(50:57):
and the research and the methodology of being able to
communicate these really complex ideas to children. Liftoff really was
ahead of the curve, and it's sort of sorry, ahead
of the curve rather, and it's a bit sad that
(51:17):
we don't produce a lot of stuff like that. You know,
Thankfully there are things like Blue Now which are going
back and reinforcing you know, what it's like to be
in a family and learning to share and all these
sort of life lessons. But Liftoff really was ahead of
its game. And I happen to think watching a few
of those episodes before we did that episode and then
going back as I went through the chapter only a
(51:40):
few days ago. You know, I do think Australians have
it asked backwards. I don't think e C is a
little nightmare fuel terrory thing. I think he was just
item that children could, you know, project onto, so that
they could understand and learn those lessons, because I don't
think a single kid was ever scared of that little doll.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
And I think it depends on when you were actually
exposed to that TV show. If you were in the
age groups where it was aimed at, I'm sure it
was a lovely puppet. But if you came in a
bit older than that and you were too old to
start projecting yourself on that thing, it is a horrifying
thing to look. I don't like it. I never watched Lift.
I only watched a little bit of lyft Off when
(52:23):
I was a kid, just enough to recognize like certain characters.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah, it's really strange how you missed like the golden
era of children's television, Like you missed all of it.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
You say that, But a lot of the ones that
you say, oh you missed that it was either on
the Disney Channel, which we didn't watch, on Saturdays because
we had other things we had to do on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
It was on Prime. I didn't do you think my
family had like like people television.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
No, but you also didn't have to get up at
seven o'clock and start cleaning the house every Saturday, so
you actually had the opportunity to watch Saturday cartoons.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
No. I slept in.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
Mostly, and then I remember getting her from school at
about three o'clock, would go to place it would go
the last half of Sesame Street. Then you go to
play school school. Then I remember it being like brom
and then a few other things before you hit Beryls
right before the news. And we've stayed on the ABC
right up until it switched over the Simpsons.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
But see, and that's why I think it's a little
bit strange though, because you know, if you had stuck
like what most kids did, which like you know, watch
the ABC from like nine o'clock, from three o'clock or
on to about five point thirty, you know, around that
time you would get things like left Off, Like I
distinctly remember left Off when I was a kid, because
(53:39):
that as the night war on, the show's got progressively
more mature. So it's like initially after play school you
would end up with Liftoff. Liftoff would lead into perhaps
you know, Widget the World Watch Your or Captain Planet,
which would then you know, lead into Round the Twist
or The Ferals, depending on that day, those would be
(54:00):
your two sort of lead out programs. But yeah, you
also missed the golden age of like Disney Television on
the afternoons. A lot of that stuff was animated here
in Australia, so you know, you ended up missing out
on Gargoyle's goof Troop. What else was their Tailspin, Dark
Wing Dark the Mighty Ducks.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, we were just an ABC household. That was all
that we really was.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
And then on when you had Batman, the animated series,
the Looney Tunes, all that suite of Warner Brothers, Emblem Productions, Animaniacs,
all that sort of stuff, you missed out on all
that as well. Yep, Yeah, I don't know how that happened.
It's it's strange to me anyway, that complete diversion to
the side. Obviously I love the pop culture stuff, but yeah,
(54:48):
going back to revisit Liftoff was definitely a highlight for
me that year. So go check out the book infored
Impact Comics dot com dot Au. Send them an email.
They'll put a side a copy for you first well
books that will be signed by myself and Holly. All Right,
ladies and gentlemen, please stay safe, be kind to each other,
and we'll see you again next week for our first
(55:10):
Weak Crap in Australia film commentary act. Oh wait, I'm
really excited, so please please just for me, just a
little favor, Just give it a chance, Just give two
episodes a chance. You'll never know the joys of the
Marsupi or Wherewolf.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
If you don't, you'll never know the joys of Holly
watching a movie for the first time. If you don't.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
Watching a movie for the first time.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Well, specific movies that you're putting on. Oh right, because
I've never seen him any of them.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
Well, you're in for a treat until then, ladies and gentlemen,
bye for now. The Weird Crap In Australia podcast is
(56:06):
produced by Holly and Matthew Soul for the Modern Meltdown.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review on
your favorite podcatching app.
A strange, spiraling white light was spotted in the early
morning sky over Sydney, with even skeptical witnesses wondering if
it was a UFO. They were last seen on the
beach with a tall man and that's the best description
police have ever had of it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
More than seventeen years after Harold Holt disappeared into raging
surf at Chevy A Beach, his widow has finally revealed
his last romantic words docky, terrifying, mesmerizing. That's the way
a number of Australians have described the alleged encounter with
the Yowi.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's time for the Weed Crap in Australia podcast. Welcome
to the week Crap in Australia Podcast. I'm you host
Matthew Soul. Joining me for another episode is Holy Solt.
Hey everyone, and this is episode at three hundred and
(00:54):
seventy six. Now, just a little bit of housekeeping in
the weed world of weed crap, weird world, crap, weird
crappy world, weird crappy world in Australia. Just a little
bit of housekeeping. This is going to be the last episode,
not only of this series, but this is the last
(01:15):
episode before we transition over to three normal episodes in
one commentary a month for the foreseeable future, so Holly
has a chance to have arrest. All the feedback we've
gotten from all of our listeners is, hey, that sounds
like a great idea. Here are some movies that we
think you should watch. So that's been really great. Obviously
(01:38):
everyone's been very understanding, so that's wonderful. So if you
do have a movie, an Australian film has to be Australian.
You have an Australian film that you would like us
to watch and do a commentary on, please let us know.
But that is going to start next week. If these
sort of commentaries are not few completely understand, but I
would say just give a couple of try because not
(02:00):
only are you going to experience a little bit of
a different film culture then you're probably used to, it
also gives us a chance to riff a little bit
more and use a little bit of this accumulated knowledge
in a different context. So it still should be pretty fun,
and we're going to try and make them as informative
(02:22):
as possible. We are going to talk about the film,
the filmmakers, We're going to have trivia there, all of
that sort of stuff, so we're still going to try
and make it engaging. It's not just going to be
two people seeing on a couch watching a film.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
This is also the last mainline episode before we grab
an astray of Volume six releases. We have this one,
we have the commentary, and then Volume six is out.
So if you haven't pre ordered by visiting Impact Comics,
go do it now.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yep, Impactcomics dot com dot au. Just send them an
email Infodimpactcomics dot com dot au let them know you
would like to pre order a copy. The first twelve copies,
the first twelve copies that will be signed once they're gone,
they are gone. That's how we always do that. And yes,
Polly I added some more contributions yesterday because this shit
(03:10):
is down to the wire.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's how we do it on this show.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
You know, Bloo dumped another five hours into inter Volume six,
did a little bit of dressing up and whatnot. So yes,
that will be off to the printers very soon. All right,
ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it's time to take
a crack at the conclusion to the Grenville train disaster.
(03:34):
This is episode three hundred and seventy six take It
Away Holly across Sydney.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
A city wide call for blood donors went out at
the Red Cross Transfusion Center in the CBD. More than
one thousand people lined up that morning. Donations were sorted, processed,
and rushed to Westmead and Paramount of Hospitals, where survivors
were being triaged. By early afternoon, six survivors were confirmed
to still be alive under the rubble. They were found
(03:59):
between Cariages three and four, in the narrow air gap
left by steel bridge cross members that embraced the collapsing roof.
So where the bridge does usually you have like some
kind of arc, even if it's implied yep, that came down,
and that arc actually wedged well enough above the train
to give just that little bit of gap. The space
(04:22):
there was less than two feet high. It was a
race against time. Trained nurses and doctors crawled in, often
sideways or on their backs, to offer assistance. Ice was
packed around limbs, ivs were threaded under the concrete. Names
were asked and recorded. While some victims of the disaster
were able to remain calm, for others, the terror of
(04:44):
their situation often became overwhelming. At the rear end of
carriage three, two children, Christopher and Deborah, were found alive
in a small pocket alongside ten bodies. There were difficulties
reaching them, but they were in good spirits from what
I could find as I did my research through the
papers Bryan to put all of this stuff together. I
(05:06):
believe Christopher died of his injuries a few days later,
becoming the eighty third fatality.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Rescuers were able to determine by early afternoon that at
least six people were still alive beneath the collapsed lab.
We have been able to talk to them and have
been able to touch some of them. One rescuer said,
as if by a miracle. There was a twenty four
inch gap between the concrete slab and the floor of
the carriages. The steel cross members of the bridge are
stopping the slab going right to the carriage floors. The
(05:34):
majority of the injured a line in the aisle of
one carriage. At the end of a second car there
was a young boy and girl, Christopher and Deborah. Deborah
is in high spirits, but there are a lot of
difficulties in getting them out. We can also see at
least ten bodies underneath, he said. Quote from The Camera Times, Wednesday,
nineteenth of January nineteen seventy seven, page thirteen. Rescue a
(05:58):
massive team effort.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
We have another quote here.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
At the scene where a small boy, one of two children,
had been brought out alive after being trapped in the wreck,
later died. Inspector Williams had commented, you can imagine how
we feel. Quote from The Australian Women's Weekly, Wednesday, the
second of February nineteen seventy seven, page four hundred and eight.
A Australia's worst trained disaster.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And those are the two sources that I could put
together to see what happened to Christopher. If anyone knows
Christopher and he survived, please let me know.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I would have to assume that it's going to be
one or two things. Either Christopher did fall victim to
things like toxic shock, you know, being stuck in a
cramped position for such a long time, that's a possibility.
You're also looking at things like dust inhalation, debri inhalation,
the gas gas. You know, there are a lot of
(06:50):
circumstances there where a young child could find themselves even
though they're rescued, dying a few days later. That being
said as well, often thinks get confused and reported reporting,
especially in this era, gets confused, So yeah, I would
probably echo your statements as for everyone if anyone is
aware of this case. Did Christopher actually pass away? Or
(07:13):
is this an example again of whispers going back and
forth and information being misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
The first major slab of bridge concrete was successfully removed
from the train at n forty pm that night. It
took coordinated effort from multiple cranes and careful monitoring of
structural loads. As slabs were lifted, more bodies were found,
more cries were heard, and more spirits broke. The rescue
efforts continued through the night and into the next day.
(07:43):
The lights brought in to illuminate the disaster site. Wednesday,
January nineteen, the last of the injured had been removed alive.
One man, Brian Gordon, twenty eight, had been trapped for
ten hours before being rescued. He died on Friday, January one. Sadly,
he succumbed to his injuries on Friday's January twenty first.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
The last person taken alive from the Grenville train smash,
mister Brian Gordon, twenty eight of the new planes, died today.
Mister Gordon was trapped in the wreckage for ten hours
before being rescued and flying to hospital with leg, chest
and internal injuries. The toll rose to eighty two today
with the death also of mister Brian Knight, forty six,
of Point Claire, near Gosford. Quote from the Camera Times, Saturday,
(08:28):
twenty second of January nineteen seventy seven, pay j eight
Whole Reaches eighty two.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Police cordoned off the entire area. The Army was called
in to build barricades and secure the site. Journalists, television
crews and radio stations formed the suburb. Reporters gathered outside
the train drivers home, prompting a furious reaction from the
Locomotive engine Men's Union, which threatened to stop all train
(08:54):
traffic in New South Wales if the press didn't back off.
Remember those grand old days were and the unions actually
had power.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, yeah, those those days. It's only long gone or
well no, actually, to be fair, last year there was
industrial action for the warehouse workers working for very supermarket
chains in Australia. They actually had a good union that
makes to get them a better deal. So in some
cases you know there is still unions out there doing
(09:22):
the best they can for their members. There's also a
lot of dodger unions too.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Unfortunately, I feel like the second category is more often
than the.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
First, but I think it's absolutely the right thing to
do in their circumstances actually create a barrier between the
press and the pain conductor. Now, whether the contrained conductor,
when no doubt we're going to go into this, had
acted appropriately or inappropriately. I can't think of a single
(09:52):
person on this planet who would want to be in
that position, and chances are their mental health will suf
to the point where they won't be able to continue
living regardless. So I think number one, it's important to
wait till all the answers come through first before fingers
start being pointed. That's what an inquest is for. And
(10:15):
I think secondly that the media are a bunch of
bloodthirsty mongrels who will often form a pack and absolutely
destroy people in their pursuit of making money. And I
think that really applies to most Australian media these days.
And I think to a certain extent back then, again,
(10:37):
going all the way back to the first year of
week crap in Australia when we talked about the disappearance
of Azaria Chamberlain. The way that Lindy Chamberlain was dealt
with was absolutely disgusting, and only a couple of decades
later you also had the Falconio disappearance and the way
that the media treated Lee's yep was also absolutely disgusting.
(10:59):
So yeah, and media pylon makes absolute sense. But the
more sensible people would say, hey, let's clean up the
disaster first before we start lane blame.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I mean, it's even worse than the modern era where
you have internet sluse out there, minute one training apiece
together what's going on and basically doing trial by meat
by social media, which is even faster than regular trail
by media.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
That same day, the Australian Journalists Association called the train
drivers irresponsible for objecting to the media presence. By nightfall,
union pressure had succeeded. The reporters left.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Telephone calls to the old Swints home We're being intercepted
today after the driver's wife received a series of abusive messages.
The Railway Union had advised the driver to make no
statement on the crash, but mister Booth passed these quotes
from Olin Switz to reporters. Today. He is not God.
He couldn't do anything about it. We want to express
our deeper sympathy and love for those people affected. We
(12:00):
wish we could shout it from the highest building. Mister
Boos said that the driver and his sobbing wife had
only today been informed of the magnitude of the disaster,
the worst rail crash in Australian history. Quote from the
Papua New Guinea Post Courier, Friday, the twenty first January
nineteen seventy seven, page six. Train band is Off.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Public grief turned to fury when it emerged that the
Bowl Street Bridge had been structurally modified decades earlier without
adequate engineering foresight. The extra concrete added to raise the
motorway and placed a dangerous load on its supports. When
the supports gave way, they took the vehicles, the concrete
and all their deadly forced straight down onto the carriages.
(12:43):
The bridge dropped over five rail lines, but not evenly.
That part of the bridge closest to the embankment fell
on an angle. A small area of the carriages that
weren't quite as squashed as those on the other side
of the train. It was in this space where most
survivors were found. Further fury erupted when survivors learned that
(13:03):
the second of track where the derailment began had not
been properly maintained. It had been signed off as fine
to be operated on only a month prior, but closer
inspections showed that fastness sickering the rails to the wooden
sleepers had degraded. This allowed the track to widen under
pressure from the locomotive's wheels, letting the engine slip off
(13:23):
the rails.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Initially, it's it really doesn't look like it was the
train conductor's fault whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
No, so this wasn't like a one and done, Like
one train just managed to shove the sleeper out of
the way and it did it. It was like, yeah,
I think it's like three dozen trains every couple of
hours across those rails, pushing it microscopically.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
When it comes to industrial disasters, especially ones of these magnitude,
it's always death by a thousand cuts. It's that slow
degradation until you get to the point where, oh shit,
something's scorn really really wrong here. It can be something
as simple as not using enough different batches when when
(14:05):
using bolts to fasten something together.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh, it can be even more simple than that, not
putting enough lubricant on an airplane tailscrew.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Going back to our threadbow disaster, a leaking pipe slowly
eroding away an entire mountain, yep, you know it's these
sort of things. You know, maintenance is extremely important. Our
friends over in America would know this as their infrastructure
is slowly crumbling around their ears. For a certain extent.
Some parts of Australian infrastructure not doing too good either,
(14:35):
But nowhere in the world are you going to find
as much degrading infrastructure as you would over in America.
That's why more often than not their bridges collapse. And
you know, actually it's funny. Just recently, I was watching
a video on an amusement park ride at Disney Holly.
You remember, as you have been on it twice now
(14:56):
the Tower of Terror.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Is this going to give for me another reason to
hate that fucking ride.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Well, at least in the American version, which I believe
is the California park. What they had, you know, and
this was what I was alluding to earlier they hadn't
used enough different batches of bolts, and they hadn't replaced
the bolts often enough, and so one batch of bolts
(15:23):
was dodgy, and so what happened is those bolts failed.
So you know that the fun bit where it sort
of drops you and then pulls you back up, and
then you know, keeps going up and down, up and down.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
You say fun, but that is not my experience had fun.
I did not either.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Time I had fun. That's good fun horrible. I hate it.
I got photos of you having lots of fun.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I hate it so much.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So when it does that that first initial little drop down, well,
for the four people who were on this ride at
the time, that little drop have to going, so it
was just that full drop. And there are other safety
measures in place that prevented it from being a disaster,
even though some people got injured. But that's what I'm
(16:11):
talking about. It's those little twiny things that you want
to think about that do need to be addressed. And
in the case of the train disaster here, someone probably
looked at it and thought, well, it has moved an inch,
or it has moved a centimeter, it has moved a millimeter,
it's not that big a deal today, And then a
month after that they're like, well, it's moved a millimeter,
(16:33):
it's not that big a deal of today, And so
you keep having that attitude until finally it falls apart
on you, and usually two disastrous consequences, like what has
happened here.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
If it wasn't for two engineering failures, the rail line
and the bridge, only eight people would have died. But
because that bridge came down.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
It it's eighty two.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, it's actually eighty four.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Sorry, eighty four. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Premier never Ran immediately called for a full public judicial inquiry,
announced on January nineteenth. It would be led by District
Court Chief Judge Justice Staunton. The inquiry was open to
the public and set to begin the week of January
twenty seven. I always find it very interesting when all
of the information that they need for an inquiry can
(17:21):
be found within was that ten days.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I mean, this is also the point though, where if
you're dealing with trains, if you're dealing with public infrastructure,
there are going to be monthly reports in order to
facilitate that sort of inquiry. It's not as difficult I
think what you're if I may I think what you're
alluding to there is that, hey, all this information suddenly
(17:47):
eppicate out of nowhere for the inquest. Is that what
you're alluding to.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
If it took them two days three days to get
people out of the carriage, that drops them to about
seven days to gather all their evidence, build their reports,
analyze the data and then present it. I mean, which
is five working days.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I mean that's quick. But is that quick because the
public is like banging for the blood of a train
conductor and his life is now at threat? Or is
it quick because they wanted to cover it up.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I don't think it's a cover up. I just think
that people are very very quick at answering questions on
these when maybe they should take a few more months
and actually look for the properances.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And how do you explain that to the Australian public.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
We're looking into it.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
It's not that huh Holly. You have done three hundred
and seventy six episodes of the Weird Crap in Australia,
and I can think.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Of at least paces we're waiting another month would have
made a massive difference.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
You. I'm not denying that you have written six you
have majority written six books for week crap in Australia.
You're probably Australia's most prominent social historian at this point
in your life. Right, I'm bragging, right, and this is
me saying that I'm bragging for you. Do you really
(19:13):
believe that the Australian public would have turned around and said, oh,
we understand, you've got a lot of information to go through.
We're just going to be quiet and we're going to
wait for you to do that.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So then what you do is you tell the public evidence.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Chet running away, start running away.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Running away, answer the question running away, a questioning to
get that month.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I think you instinctively want to blame I just the government,
and I'm and you know me, I will be the
first to ascribe blame where it belongs, especially when it's
a government. I fucking hate government and I love to
talk about how how ineffectual it is or how slow
it takes to get things done. But let's not dance
(20:03):
around the question. The Australian public wanted blood and they
wanted answers, so public officials could either take their time
to conduct it properly, or they could turn around and
protect the lives of people that would have been targeted
by vigilanti attacks.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So what you're saying is they didn't do it properly.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
No, I don't think they would have. I think you
need more than five days. But does you have to
remember that at some point the Australian public does have
to take responsibility for the way we want things conducted.
If the Australian public turns around and at that point
is baying for blood, as government officials, you have to
(20:49):
make a move quickly. Now, as government officials, you would
expect them to have courage to be able to explain
this to a population. But as we've said before, and
I'll say this again, people a dumb, panicky, stupid animals
and when they feel angry and when they want names
and results, I mean, only a few weeks ago we
covered the riots of Para Matter. So while I totally
(21:13):
agree with you, sorry Cranella, paramatter Para matter. Right. So
while will I totally agree with you in the respect
that five days is not long enough and it does
allow for for misinformation, it does allow for a poorly
informed in quest, I'm not going to deny that whatsoever.
But I think it's also important to give some responsibility
(21:37):
to the Australian public for being reactionary in these circumstances.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I don't know, it's a good hefty amount of blame
should go to tribo media.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, but who's buying the newspapers.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Those headlines out there that sell the newspapers.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
You know, who's consuming There has to be some sort
of person I said some.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
The inquiry's term of reference would allow it to examine
not only the derailment but the entire state of the
New South Wales railway system. Justice Staughton would be assisted
by two independent technical assessors, one from another state's railway
and one from private railway engineering. Railway absolutely was from Victoria.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yes, they would have been like hot digity dog, I
get just shit on New South Wales.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I take a crack at Sydney. Let's go.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Fuck. I'm good. I knew I knew it was going
to be a Victoria.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You also have done three hundred and seventy five episodes
of this podcast. If you can't see that pattern coming,
no one can.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
And I did cut you off there. Do you want
to finish that paragraph?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
The other assessor was from a private was a private
railway engineer from industry and academia in order to guard
against bias.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
So you had one from another state who was absolutely
looking for any mistakes possible, and you had an academic
advisor as well.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Someone who is an actual engineer and who could read
what was written.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
The report recommended that the Public Transport Commission formulate and
implement a clearly defined policy on regular track inspections and
give close consideration to speed limits applying to Class forty
six locomotives, the type involved in the Grenville crash. The
report said the Bold Street bridge which collapse on the
Blue Mountains commuter train was not designed to stand on
(23:27):
one set of trestles, and its collapse was caused by
the removal of montrestle by the locomotive. It is said that,
by an unfortunate quirk of circumstances, the actual weight of
the span which fell on the carriages of the train
was approximately double the weight envisaged by the designers. Quote
from The Camera Times, Wednesday, first June nineteen seventy seven,
(23:49):
page three, Grenville Disaster Inquiry. So Holly, if I'm understanding
this correctly, what has happened here is you've got a
locomotive that is perhaps going too fast for its size,
which was the regulations, not the train conductor's fault.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It was under the speed limit.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
It hits a well worn piece of track that was loose.
That starts the chain event for the crash. The crash
hits a bridge that is not supported as it should be,
and then the bridge collapses. Yes, am I right? So
(24:28):
at no point can you blame the train conductors for
that at all?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
No, And because we watched Final Destination like three days ago.
I'm sitting here, you're running through that, and I'm just
seeing the screw in the in the the sleeper just
wiggling free as the train comes along and spreading the rail, and.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, it's all it takes. It all, that's that's that's
all it takes. Is Sometimes just that little tiny, innocuous
thing that you never think about. They can absolutely lead
to disaster. Like that's why the Shinkinson in in Japan,
the bullet train, their systems are very very closely monitored.
(25:07):
Maintenance has conducted consistently and very professionally, because those suckers
if they derail, that's a disaster. You know, they're speeding bullets.
It's three hundred size of a locomotive three hundred and.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Twenty three hundred and thirty kilometers an hour, weighing a
couple of one hundred tons. Yeah, that's going to kill everybody.
The Staunton Inquiry officially commenced on the twenty seventh of
January nineteen seventy seven. The scope was broad backed by
public pressure and the scale of the devastation. It quickly
zeroed in on the track condition, the structural weight of
the Bold Street Bridge, and the design of the carriages.
(25:45):
Each element, it would find, played a role not just
in the derailment, but in how deadly it became. By Thursday,
January twentieth, the names of the first thirty two victims
were released to the public. The remaining names followed in
the the next day. Among them were office workers, school children, mmuteras,
tourists and retirees. They came from all walks of life.
(26:09):
Within weeks, it was confirmed that the bridge had not
been built to modern safety coats and by modern only
nineteen seventies. Originally constructed in nineteen fifties, the Ball Street
Bridge had stood too low for the street level traffic
it was meant to carry. To compensate, road engineers had
added a thick concrete popping to the roadway, raising the
street type by nearly a meter, but adding literally hundreds
(26:30):
of tons to the bridge's weight and the supports meant
to be holding it up. Those supports were sheared off
in the initial derailment when the locomotives scraped into them
at roughty fifty kilometers an hour. The bridge didn't fall immediately.
It hovered precariously for fifteen seconds, then collapsed in one
crushing blow. There was the issue of the speed of
(26:51):
the train, which was quickly sorted clear the driver of
any wrongdoing. Calculations indicated he was traveling at only seventy
eight kilometers an hour on an eighty kilometer hour zone,
easily within the train's limits. Then game the issue of
the carriages. In the years before the crash, the Public
Transport Commission had been retrofitting old compartment style carriages into
(27:14):
more modern, open plan ones. The old design featured thick
internal walls separating small passenger compartments. When the bridge collapsed,
these might have acted as internal bracing, potentially shielding some
passages from the full weight of the bridge and the roof,
But in the newer open plan design there were no
(27:34):
dividing walls, only very thin side panels in the outer shell.
When the concrete fell, there was nothing to disperse the
load on the roof the carriage. Roof simply caved in,
and the passengers below had no pants. One section of
carriage floor was crushed to under a meter in height
between the roof and the wheels. In some places, the
space between the roof and the floor was two feet tall.
(27:57):
In others, the weight of the bridge had not only
showed the roof down to floor level, but the wheels
had buckled underneath, dropping the floor level down further. Passengers
inside the areas with clearance were found with their shoulders
beneath their knees. Some died sitting upright, unmoving, Others trapped
for hours succumbed to crush injuries after being freed. By
(28:20):
the time the last slap of concrete was removed in
the rear of the carriage at six am on Thursday,
the twentieth of January, the death toll had risen to eighty,
with three more to die over the coming days. In
twenty seventeen, an unborn child whose mother perished in the
wreck was formally recognized as the eighty fourth victim. In
(28:40):
the weeks following the disaster, the Rand New South Wales
government offered any assistance it put to the victims and
their families.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Mister Rands that the state government would pay for the
funerals of the victims and survivors would not be charged
for ambulance or hospital expenses. Is that all claims will
be processed without delay and formalities will be kept to
a minimum. Quote from the Papua New Guinea Post Courier, Thursday,
twentieth January nineteen seventy seven, page four Train Toll eighty
(29:08):
Premiere Wraps Railways.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Public grief turned to civic anger when the full engineering
facts emerged. Granville had not just been a tragedy, it
had been waiting to happen across the state. More than
fifty rail bridges of similar design were identified for urgent review.
The Bold Street Bridge itself was rebuilt as a single
spam bridge with no center support pylons, making a similar
(29:33):
disaster in that spot structurally impossible. Rail maintenance practices in
New South Wales underwent a wholesale overhaul rior to Granville.
Maintenance had been scaled back consistently since World War II,
due to financial constraints and labor shortages. The disaster shattered
that penny pinching policy. The Public Transport Commission of New
(29:56):
South Wales implemented strict inspection protocols and began reinforcing bridges
and railbeds statewide. In the forty five years since. Derailments
have still occurred, with thirteen occurring from nineteen seventy eight
to the present day, but none of those where the
causes known have been linked to poor maintenance. The causes
range from everything from landslides to bridge washouts, to operate
(30:18):
an error and in one case, a driver's fatal heart attack.
Mechanical failure remains.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Red he Premier Ran said the Grandfell disaster would throw
light on what was wrong with the state railway system.
He said, I do not think we have to look
at every mile of track or locomotive or railway carriage
to learn that over the past decade or so the
New South Wales railways have been allowed to run down.
It is not part of my role to be pointing
(30:45):
the finger anywhere except to say this. I think this
inquiry is wide enough to underline and emphasize that which
we know, and that is that the railways of New
South Wales are in ramshackle condition and it is a
several years program to modernize the system. The full tragedy
is that so many people had to be killed and mained.
Emphasize what should have been obvious for the past decade.
(31:07):
Quote from the part of New Guinea Career Posts Thursday
the twentieth or January nineteen seventy seven, page four train
toll eighty Premier wraps railways.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
So from the end of World War Two to the
early nineteen sixties, that was a labor New South Wales YEP.
From the early nineteen sixties to the nineteen I think
it was mid nineteen seventies that was a liberal government.
Then labor got back in for two three years before
this happened, which is why I ran said turning around,
going the Liberals did it?
Speaker 1 (31:37):
I mean the Liberal Party playbook is to take money
out of infrastructure to put it into the hands of
private companies. If you support the Liberal Party, I'm not
going to tell you not to support them if you
believe they have good policies. You believe they have good policies.
But the fact remains that Telstra was a government run
(31:59):
service until the Liberal Party.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Telcom was good, tellstrue, not so.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Much quantas was public until it wasn't anymore, and then
the services turned to shit. You know, we have all
of these examples of the Liberal Party pulling money out
of infrastructure, out of services, and they handed over to
private companies, and you know this is what happens. You
keep kicking that down the line until eventually you can't
(32:27):
anymore because eighty two people die, eighty four people die. Sorry.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
In true politician fashion, the leader of the New South
Wales opposition came out swinging back.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Sir Eric's comments came soon after he learned to the
statement by the Premier, mister Wren that the New South
Wales railways were in a ramshackle condition after a decade
of neglect. Sir Eric said the figures speak for themselves.
There was only one fatality in eleven years on the
railway in the Labor government's first eight months of office.
Seventy now and now eighty lives have been lost. He
(32:57):
said the figures showed enormous amounts of money had been
spent on maintenance in the past. Sir Eric said that
mister Man would have to be careful who wanted to
engage in this kind of political mud slinging because two
can play at this game. Quote from the Canberra Times, Friday,
twenty first of January nineteen seventy seven, page three. The
Grenville disaster will as criticized over comments.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
The reason why there was only eleven there was only
one fatality in eleven years of the Liberal government is
because of the twenty odd years of Labor putting money
into the infrastructure, and then as soon as the Liberals
start taking it out, there's a big disaster.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I mean that being said, Holly, do you think the
Australian public again sat there and went, oh, actually no,
like based on this eleven years of negligence. This accident
has happened within the first eight months, but it was
waiting to happen regardless. No, what do you think they
blamed the Liberal government of the Labor government at the time.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
No, but this is me unfucking history and I'm pointing
out a problem.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
You know, like, regardless of what you're presenting, which is
absolutely factually accurate. Do you think people saw it that way? No?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
The legacy of Granville wasn't just steal and concrete. It
was people every January. Since nineteen seventy seven, survivors and
families of the dead have gathered at the site. Eighty
four roses are tossed onto the tracks, one for every
life lost. In two thousand and seven, Clark was added
to the new bridge not only in honor of the dead,
(34:28):
but also to commemorate the extraordinary work of the rescue teams,
railway workers, police, firefighters, SES and the dozens of volunteers
who clawed through the rubble for days. The judicial inquiry
would take months, but its recommendations became policy.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Among p legacies are reinforcement and redesign of rail bridges
across the state, immediate reforms to rail inspection and maintenance,
reintroduction of the car put mentalization, carriage designs for crash survivability,
national understanding, and new tree protocols for crush syndrome. Professional
guidelines for seeing safety during rescue operations involving LPG or
(35:06):
electrical infrastructure was.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Also the introduction of the first of the metallic carriages
came out after this right so that it was all
in nineteen ninety eight. The disaster was memorialized in the
docudrama The Day of the Roses, A powerful and graphic
depiction of the events that's donned the nation.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
The classic Australian docu drama were.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Really good at them, more drama than.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Document But yeah, what was it. I think it was
a year after the Threadbow disaster that the Channel ten
went scrambling to quickly get out of three part mini series.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I think so when I'm actually quite surprised that the
train secre up in Queensland hasn't already had three.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, that surprises me as well. I suppose they're being
They're probably very reluctant to touch upon it too much
because you know, like you look at all the channels
in Australia, they all lean pretty conservatively and I don't
think they want to piss off their their viewers, would
be my guess true.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
In twenty twelve, the History Channel Australia aired The Train,
a documentary dedicated to the technical and human aspects of
the crash. In twenty twenty one, you Can't ask that
included a Grandville survivor in its special Undisaster Victims, So
if you wanted to go back and watch that. In
May twenty seventeen, on the fortieth anniversary of the tragedy.
(36:31):
The New South Wales premiere Gladys Beregiclian formally apologized to
the victims and families. That same year, the Unburnt the
Unborn Child was added as the eighty fourth victim, bringing
closure to one final overlooked lot. Grahamville did more than
change infrastructure. It changed how Australia understood engineering responsibility, crisis
(36:53):
response and the hidden cost of budgetary neglect. Twenty twenty three,
when the newly elected Mins Labor government undertook a full
audit of the rail network, it found that the outgoing
administration had been deferring essential maintenance for years.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
That is, once again the Liberal Party. That's what it is, folks.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You know, every single time you voted me in, you
voted me in for this kind of thing to happen.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
They're going to pull money out of maintenance. They're going
to pull money out of infrastructure. They do it every
single time. I mean that being said, now, I think
we've seen the death of the Liberal Party in this country.
And that may be a pretty bold claim to make,
but I just don't understand how so. What happens after
an election is you're giving campaign funds by the amount
(37:40):
of votes you have received and so what Holly, you
would say that after this election. Historically they've never received
less votes in their entire sitting life.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Either they're going to have to go to Daddy Murdock
for more money or they are screwed.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
You know. And I don't think that the Liberal Party
will be considered a viable option in this country for many,
many years. I think we'll end up seeing at least
another term, certainly of an Albernesi run labor government. And
at the end of the day, you know, there are
people who are going to want the Labor government to
(38:16):
do things quicker, and they are going to want to
see them done more publicly. That is not how politics works.
This is never how politics have worked. But I think
that you'll find that there'll be more money spent on
infrastructure over those couple of years then there will be
when the inevitably the Labor Party gets kicked out for
(38:37):
whatever comes next. And I don't think that's going to
be a Liberal Party. I think that's going to be
a new party. I think, just like when Menzies had
to reform after the defeat of the Australia Party, I
think the Liberal Party will have to reform under a
new label as well as conservatives try and work out
what their potential future is in the political landscape. But
(38:59):
as Whole just pointed out very astutely, there not only
did you have a pullout of maintenance budget in the
nineteen seventies, you had the exact same thing happened over
the decades of liberal run New South Wales government. I mean,
the facts of the facts, the truth doesn't care about
how you feel about it. If you're a liberal supporter
(39:20):
and you're like, you know, screw you guys and your bias, well, you.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Know, why are you still listening to this?
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yes, go find the money that you said that you
think that was meant to be spent. Where that money go?
Why were those budgets decreased?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I'm going to say it's being spent on that second
airport and the ten time priced tag that paid for it.
This deferment risked the same kind of failure Granville had
already paid for it. Works were ordered across the entire
network as a result. In between June and December twenty
twenty three, well the nineteen hundred high priority defects were
(39:55):
corrected and eight hundred kilometers of rail track was repaired
six months ahead of schedule and under budget. Is that
ever a good thing? Question mark?
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Might a note.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Every improvement since every bridge retrofit, every schedule and inspection,
every maintenance record kept a standard owes a debt to
the eighty four who never made it to Sydney that
Tuesday morning. For the survivors, grief didn't end when the
last slab of concrete was lifted. Many bore physical injuries
for the rest of their lives, amputations, spinal injuries, collapsed lungs,
(40:34):
and internal trauma. The psychological damage lingered even longer. The
scent of diesel, the rumble of a passing train, or
even the summer heat of January could pull them straight
back under the weight of concrete and steel. Many survivors
describe vivid memories not just of pain or terror, but
of extraordinary endurance, whispering to others, pin nearby, holding the
(40:56):
hands of strangers, keeping hope alive in the dark. Some
survivors and rescuers found each other years later at memorials,
having only known each other as a voice in the rubble,
or a hand reaching through twisted metal bonds formed in
that chaos became something sacred, beyond trauma, almost spiritual. There
(41:18):
were also moments of gallows humor and quiet bravery. One
young girl wrapped in the wreckage kept cracking jokes to
keep the spirits up of those around her, even as
people died beside her. She didn't stop. Rescuers never learned
her name, but her voice was a beacon in the
One police officer told a reporter that he had never
(41:39):
seen courage like it, not in his entire career. But
it wasn't just the volunteers on the ground that made
a difference. In the days after the disaster, over a
thousand people queued to give blood at the Transfusion Center
in Sydney. A concert was held at Paramount Shopping Center
to raise money for the victims, with entry fees of
(41:59):
a doll official ldren and two dollars for adults or
six and twelve dollars. In twenty twenty two, the money
went to the Grenville Train Disaster Victims Appeal Fund, intended
to provide long term support. Some projected it would need
to run for fifteen to twenty years. But there's always
a ready scumbag looking to make a few dollars in
a disaster.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
A thief had ransacked the cars of rescue workers at
the Grenville train crash site, unaware that they had been
digging for the body of a close relative. A Sydney
newspaper set today. The man asked the newspaper today to
help him return the stolen goods. He said he had
designed to give them back after learning also that he
had taken a wallet belonging to a Salvation Army welfare
officer who had helped him for years. In a telephone
(42:43):
talk with a reporter, the man solved and said, have
done a terrible and heartless thing. I took a transistor,
radio and a wallet from a car, then later realized
it belong to one of the kindest men I have
ever met. When I learned a close relative was killed
in the train smash and realized I had robbed the
men who recovered them, I was sick with shame. The man,
father of six and unemployed since October, said the temptation
(43:06):
to ransack unlocked cars on the disaster site had been
too strong. A Salvation Army worker Today said he had
found his stolen belongings squeezed into the letterbox at his
home this morning. Quote from the camera Time, Saturday, twenty
second of January nineteen seventy seven, page eight Conscience one. Look,
I have no problem with that.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
You realize that he fucked up.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
We have to give people roads back. Yeah, wof do
you know? Obviously there are certain circumstances where there is
no roadback. We are very aware of that, considering we
have talked about killers and child abductors and things like that.
But for people like this gentleman here, who obviously realized
(43:48):
what he had done and did his best to make
things right, there has to be a roadback for those
sort of people.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
The Governor General of New Zealand centificial condolences. The Queen
of Being England personally inquired into the situation, asking to
be updated regularly, and across Australia, families who'd never heard
of Branville before now knew it intimately as a place
of loss, of survival and of cautionary lessons. In the
years since, survivors and the families of victims have become
(44:17):
tireless advocates for rail safety. They've lobbied governments to impose
stricter penalties for negligence to maintain rigorous maintenance schedules, and
to fund emergency training for first responders. They've also pushed
for the creation of a rail safety ombersman, an independent watchdog,
to ensure another Grandville can never happen again. The site
(44:40):
itself is quiet now. Trains still run through Granville Station,
passing beneath a redesigned Bold Street bridge, this time without
its central supports. But every eighteenth of January, families gather,
tossing eighty four roses onto the trucks. Some come with walkers,
others with strollers. Some bring faded newspaper clippings, others bring grandkids.
(45:02):
They share stories about uncles they never met, about friends
who saved them, about hands that held theirs under concrete.
A plaque installed into two thousand and seven honors the
railway workers and rescue crews. Further signage describes a sequence
of events the victims and the changes made sense, and
though time has passed, Granville remains an open wound in
(45:24):
Australia's history. It stands as a stark reminder systems only
hold when they're maintained, the corners cut to save money
can kill, and that every warning ignored is a tragedy.
Waiting to happen. It also reminds us what courage looks
like in a surgeon crawling into wreckage with a hack saw,
in a stranger tying a rope around a dangling car
(45:45):
so people inside could escape. That's the legacy of Granville.
Eighty four lives ended, but thousands are changed, and with
every inspection completed, every bridge reinforced, and every track replaced,
they are quietly on it again.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Various stute observation there, Holly, I agree with you entirely,
A very nice sentiment. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's it
for the Greenville crash disaster. We hope you have been
well informed. And just one more quick reminder, I don't forget.
Next week we are doing our commentary. The film will
be telling three The Mars Superials are first in our
(46:22):
ospolitation commentary series, so again, give it a chance. You
can watch that movie beforehand, or you can watch it
with us with the commentary track plane in the background.
You can check that out on the Amazon Prime streaming service,
or you can grab the disc from gb hi FI
(46:43):
Orumbrella dot com dot Au and support our locals and
physical media at the same time. All right before we
let you go. Don't forget. You can contact us via
social media or email. On social media just typing we
Crapping Austraya into the search bar of your social media
of choice. Our email addresses we crap in Australia at
gmail dot com. Keep those emails coming. We'd love to
(47:05):
hear your feedback and your commentary on our episodes, as
well as what you'd like us to cover in the future.
You can also help support the show by joining our Patreon.
For only five dollars a month, you get access to
bonus minisodes as well as these episodes unedited and uncut. Sorry,
as well as these episodes uncut, you can say and
(47:26):
get these mainline episodes uncut and add free. You can
also help us out by checking out our book series,
Impactcomics dot com dot Au is where you can pick
up physical copies in Australia. You can grab the physical
edition from our print on demand service Lulu dot com overseas,
and you can check out the digital version on the
(47:48):
Amazon Kindles store. And, last but not least, if you
want to weed crap In Australia T shirt or other
pieces of merch, head over to our red Bubble and
Tea public stores, and as is custom, we give Holly
the final words go.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
By book six.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, well, Holly, that sounds.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Jill, Jill.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
If you want to shut the time on it, tell
your funny story, lady, and before we let you go.
The reason that Holly used to drag me along the
conventions where she had to sell her books, is it, Holly?
Is that Holly is terrible at selling herself and selling
her books.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
As if anyone who listens to this.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Actually, no, you were really good at it in a
Gamma con.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
In because I'd had by that point about fifteen years
of retail experience.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
All right, So sell me the book, Holly. Don't just
say boma boopees in a very meek voice. Sell me
your book. Why should people buy volume six?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Do you want like the pitch that I give a
conventions or do you want the pitch that I'd give
the listens?
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Sell it? Then you do it? How you feel?
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Hey? How you going there? Are you interested in Australian history?
Do you like true crime? Do you like aliens? Do
you like monsters? We've got the book for you. We
Crap in Australia. Volume six is available on September one.
Inside you'll find lots of true stories about our history,
both the official and the unofficial versions. Why don't you
(49:13):
head on over got Lulu dot com for the print version.
We've got Amazon dot com for the electronic No.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Thanks, I don't read books anyway.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
That's this, at which point I then go on to
sell the podcast.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
U dear, what is some of your favorite subjects from
this particular volume, Holly.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Jesus, I only looked at the tables contours last night
and I can't even remember a single thing.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
That's well, I'll let me remind you of a couple there.
We covered the brown Out Strangler of Melbourne, the garage girls.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Of World War iiwo Yeah, Who's serious?
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Is who serious? As a pop culture one we covered,
we went back and did Wolf Creek as just the
film itself. We covered the Ferals, the children's television show Lift.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Off Power Break.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
It was a big one, that one. Yeah, so lots
of World War II history in that book.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
And we did the UFO encounter on the American base
in the West a straight too.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yes, Little Anny saw her UFO. Yes, yes, me personally,
I happen to like the deep dive that we did
into children's programming. I watched Bluie for the first time
when we did those episodes and ended up just putting
it on in the background more often than not and
going back through Liftoff, you know, there was the biggest
(50:32):
thing for me is that people, in my opinion, have
it asked backwards when it comes to the Little Puppet
ec They're like, oh, you know, he has no face.
It's all. It's all terrifying. When you have a little
bit of an understanding about child psychology, you would be
stocked at what children can project onto those sort of objects,
(50:57):
and the research and the methodology of being able to
communicate these really complex ideas to children. Liftoff really was
ahead of the curve, and it's sort of sorry, ahead
of the curve rather, and it's a bit sad that
(51:17):
we don't produce a lot of stuff like that. You know,
Thankfully there are things like Blue Now which are going
back and reinforcing you know, what it's like to be
in a family and learning to share and all these
sort of life lessons. But Liftoff really was ahead of
its game. And I happen to think watching a few
of those episodes before we did that episode and then
going back as I went through the chapter only a
(51:40):
few days ago. You know, I do think Australians have
it asked backwards. I don't think e C is a
little nightmare fuel terrory thing. I think he was just
item that children could, you know, project onto, so that
they could understand and learn those lessons, because I don't
think a single kid was ever scared of that little doll.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
And I think it depends on when you were actually
exposed to that TV show. If you were in the
age groups where it was aimed at, I'm sure it
was a lovely puppet. But if you came in a
bit older than that and you were too old to
start projecting yourself on that thing, it is a horrifying
thing to look. I don't like it. I never watched Lift.
I only watched a little bit of lyft Off when
(52:23):
I was a kid, just enough to recognize like certain characters.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah, it's really strange how you missed like the golden
era of children's television, Like you missed all of it.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
You say that, But a lot of the ones that
you say, oh you missed that it was either on
the Disney Channel, which we didn't watch, on Saturdays because
we had other things we had to do on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
It was on Prime. I didn't do you think my
family had like like people television.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
No, but you also didn't have to get up at
seven o'clock and start cleaning the house every Saturday, so
you actually had the opportunity to watch Saturday cartoons.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
No. I slept in.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
Mostly, and then I remember getting her from school at
about three o'clock, would go to place it would go
the last half of Sesame Street. Then you go to
play school school. Then I remember it being like brom
and then a few other things before you hit Beryls
right before the news. And we've stayed on the ABC
right up until it switched over the Simpsons.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
But see, and that's why I think it's a little
bit strange though, because you know, if you had stuck
like what most kids did, which like you know, watch
the ABC from like nine o'clock, from three o'clock or
on to about five point thirty, you know, around that
time you would get things like left Off, Like I
distinctly remember left Off when I was a kid, because
(53:39):
that as the night war on, the show's got progressively
more mature. So it's like initially after play school you
would end up with Liftoff. Liftoff would lead into perhaps
you know, Widget the World Watch Your or Captain Planet,
which would then you know, lead into Round the Twist
or The Ferals, depending on that day, those would be
(54:00):
your two sort of lead out programs. But yeah, you
also missed the golden age of like Disney Television on
the afternoons. A lot of that stuff was animated here
in Australia, so you know, you ended up missing out
on Gargoyle's goof Troop. What else was their Tailspin, Dark
Wing Dark the Mighty Ducks.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, we were just an ABC household. That was all
that we really was.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
And then on when you had Batman, the animated series,
the Looney Tunes, all that suite of Warner Brothers, Emblem Productions, Animaniacs,
all that sort of stuff, you missed out on all
that as well. Yep, Yeah, I don't know how that happened.
It's it's strange to me anyway, that complete diversion to
the side. Obviously I love the pop culture stuff, but yeah,
(54:48):
going back to revisit Liftoff was definitely a highlight for
me that year. So go check out the book infored
Impact Comics dot com dot Au. Send them an email.
They'll put a side a copy for you first well
books that will be signed by myself and Holly. All Right,
ladies and gentlemen, please stay safe, be kind to each other,
and we'll see you again next week for our first
(55:10):
Weak Crap in Australia film commentary act. Oh wait, I'm
really excited, so please please just for me, just a
little favor, Just give it a chance, Just give two
episodes a chance. You'll never know the joys of the
Marsupi or Wherewolf.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
If you don't, you'll never know the joys of Holly
watching a movie for the first time. If you don't.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
Watching a movie for the first time.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Well, specific movies that you're putting on. Oh right, because
I've never seen him any of them.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
Well, you're in for a treat until then, ladies and gentlemen,
bye for now. The Weird Crap In Australia podcast is
(56:06):
produced by Holly and Matthew Soul for the Modern Meltdown.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review on
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