Family revisit site of Seymour train accident

Sally’s great uncle was seriously injured when his foot was badly crushed while trying to board a moving train.

She met with local identities Anne and John Thompson and John Jennings and toured the Seymour station before going to see the likely site of the accident.

Sally was pleased to be able to do something to honour her great uncle but also felt sad knowing what he had gone through and how far he had to travel with his mangled foot.

In late October 1933 many Australian newspapers reported a railway accident which occurred in Seymour.

The accident was reported under headings such as “Fell under Train”, “Young Man’s Mishap”, “Saved from Death”, “Gallant Rescue of Mate”, “May Lose Foot” and “Saved Youth’s Life – but then he was his Pal”.

This story was carried in city newspapers such as Melbourne’s “Age”, Sydney’s “Daily Telegraph” and Adelaide’s “News”, but there were also short reports in newspapers in regional towns such as Bathhurst, Broken Hill, Armidale and Inverell.

These can all be read on Trove at trove.nla.gov.au but unfortunately the Seymour newspapers of that time have not been digitized and added to the “Trove” collection.

Twenty-year-old Ernest John Rodwell of Summer Hill, NSW was trying to board a moving goods train at about 6 pm. when he slipped and his left foot was dragged under the wheel and badly crushed.

He was travelling with a mate, Leslie Ireland, of Rockford, Chicago, USA., who saw him falter so grabbed his coat and pulled him backwards. This prevented him from being dragged under the train and so sustaining possible fatal injuries.

The Bathurst “National Advocate” and the “Labor Daily” of Sydney both reported “one of Rodwell’s feet was crushed and he lost a great deal of blood. He stated that had it not been for the action of Ireland in making the ligature, he would have bled to death.”

The report in the Melbourne “Age” tells how Ireland “carried the injured youth on his back for a considerable distance along the road before the driver of a motor lorry stopped in response to his frantic signals, and drove the sufferer and his friend to the Seymour police station.”

Ireland said while he was walking along the road “several motorists, who must have evidently been unaware of the serious injury sustained by Rodwell, declined to stop and render assistance.”

The “Age” further reports that Rodwell was placed on a train by the Seymour Police and taken to Spencer St.

“From there he was brought to the Melbourne Hospital, and was admitted to the institution”, the report concludes.

The two young men had been in Victoria for about five months looking for work. Rodwell had received a letter from his young sister in Sydney telling him that his mother had died so he and Ireland decided to return to Sydney.

A common practice for itinerant workers during the lean times of the 1930s was to “jump the rattler” to travel from one place to another as they usually could not afford the fare.

The rides were often very uncomfortable as they were usually goods trains and at times stock trains.

Rodwell is reported in the Adelaide “News” as saying, “We started off, and when I fell at Seymour, Lance hoisted me on to his back and carried me across the line, and a good way along the main road.

“At last the driver of a truck picked us up. I guess Lance will stay on here until I’m better and doctor says I’m in for a good, long time.” “Lance is my pal”, said Rodwell when referring to marine engineer Ireland, aged 25, “it might have been my head that went under the wheels if it hadn’t been for him”.

Seymour identity and former Railways District Superintendent David Watson said the accident probably took place “north of Seymour alongside the former Highway, now Seymour Avenel Road.”

He felt this was the most likely place because of the description of being carried “across the line and then along the main road”.

David explains “there is a heavy gradient against north bound trains for about two miles (3.2km) north of Seymour and a goods train from a standing start would be travelling relatively slowly, making it an ideal place to attempt to board.

“If the incident occurred north of the Freeway overbridge location the deceptively slow train would then be starting to gain speed making boarding increasingly hazardous.”

There were fears at the time that Rodwell would need to have his leg amputated.

I was curious to know what happened further to Ernest John Rodwell. Anne Thompson of Seymour had provided me with the original information that she had learnt from Sally Moore, who is a great niece of Rodwell and knew of him in the family as “Uncle Jack”.

Sally Moore and her mother said Jack did end up having his leg amputated (presumably a few days later in hospital).

“Apparently gangrene set in and the amputation of his lower leg became necessary. He lived for another forty years, with a prosthetic leg from about the knee down,” they said. 

“Once he recovered, he moved back to Sydney where he was able to help out his aunt in her slipper factory. It was here that he learnt the clicker trade (the person who cuts the uppers for boots or shoes in a factory.)

“He moved to Melbourne a few years later and worked in a shoe factory. He married Phyllis Annette Whitely from Collingwood, who also worked in shoe manufacturing. He died in 1973.”

I am grateful to Sally Moore, Anne Thompson and David Watson for assistance in the preparation of this article.