Thirty three years ago today a train filled with peak hour commuters crashed into a pylon on the Bold Street Bridge at Granville, derailing the first and second carriages and causing the bridge to collapse on the third and forth carriages. Massive concrete blocks tend to make a mess when they collide with flimsy metal and even flimsier humans so it is no surprise that this dreadful event left 83 people dead and 213 people injured – many seriously and life altering. It also made a deep impression on anyone who was on that train, involved in the rescue of the dead and injured, witnessed the event or its aftermath, reported it or simply watched the horror unfold on television screens across the country and around the world.
Thirty three years ago I was living at Homebush West and working at Parramatta Library. I drove to work that day completely oblivious to the tragic event that had happened approximately half an hour before. I was slightly curious as to why Parramatta Road was closed and why there appeared to be an inordinate amount of buses and police cars on the other side of the closure, but had no idea what it all meant until I arrived at work.
A colleague working at the Depot arrived at work that morning to find that all the men had left to go and help at the disaster site. They stayed there until the Rescue Units were established and it was agreed that there was little more they could do. I didn’t know that. Good on Parramatta Council Depot and Engineering staff. Their commitment should have been better known, but this was before the Internet, Intranet and Celebrating Success and most of us had little knowledge of what the rest of Council was doing.
At that time Parramatta Hospital was the main city hospital. Westmead Hospital wouldn’t open until the following year. All day long I could hear the ambulances screaming up Church Street to the hospital in an almost endless stream. Borrowers would come into the Library and provide us with news – either true or imagined but it wasn’t until I got home that I could see for myself exactly what had happened. I was appalled.
I remember Marie, the Granville Branch Librarian, telling me that as she passed the bridge on her way to the Library for her evening shift, there were hundreds of people ghoulishly watching the proceedings. She saw parents lift children onto their shoulders to get a better look at the dead and injured being removed from the carnage. Somehow a rumour circulated that the Blood Bank was going to send a mobile unit to Granville Library and she was bombarded by people who were not at all pleased when she said she knew nothing about it. Phone calls to the Blood Bank were equally unproductive as the Blood Bank never intended sending a unit to Granville.
For days the news coverage was at saturation point. We lived with the tales of miraculous rescues, sad deaths, unbelievable courage and the nobility of the human spirit. We also had to live with the dark side of humanity, especially the ba****ds who stole equipment and possessions belonging to the rescuers.
For weeks afterwards people would come into the Library with their own survival tales. As Parramatta was the last stop before the crash, such tales had a definite poignancy about them. There were people who normally travelled in the first, third or forth carriages who for some reason or another didn’t do so on that day. They overslept and missed the train, missed the bus, met a friend and decided to sit with them in another carriage, decided to catch an earlier or later train. The stories were varied but all lead to someone being saved. Then there were the tragic stories of people who were in one of those carriages who would not normally have been there. I have always tended to believe in fate – that we have an appointed time to live and an appointed time to die. Listening to those tales cemented the belief into my psyche.
After the last body had been retrieved and the rubble and steel removed, the Army constructed a temporary Bailey’s bridge over the railway line, re-connecting both sides of Granville and opening this busy road to traffic once more. The Bailey’s bridge served until a new bridge could be built.
On the first anniversary of the disaster, survivors and their families threw 83 roses onto the track in memory of the dead and injured. This has become an annual tradition and has lead to the event being called “The Day of the Roses."
Today we remember that horrific event 33 years ago. There have been and will continue to be other disasters, other lives lost, but I will never forget the day a concrete bridge fell on a train.
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