Dark day on Hawkesbury River crossing

Elizabeth Robinson's headstone in the Brooklyn cemetery, in the very most northern bounds of Sydney, is a small affair and she shares it with her husband, John, who died in 1946.

Headstone for Elizabeth Robinson in Brooklyn cemetery. Photo Samantha Elley

What stands out for Elizabeth, however, is it states she was "killed railway smash 20th January, 1944".

Digging deeper into Trove (trove.nla.gov.au), a search for "Brooklyn railway disaster" or "Brooklyn rail smash" brings up a plethora of news articles on the event.

On January 20th, 1944 a train struck a bus at the Hawkesbury River level crossing. Sixteen passengers inside the bus were killed. A Brooklyn resident by the name of William Henry Sutton told the inquest, held in Hornsby that on that morning, he was walking towards the crossing. He saw a bus almost at the crossing and the gate on the Kangaroo Point side was open. The one on his side was closed.

"I saw the bus stop on the crossing and walked forward to open the gate on the Brooklyn side," he told The Sydney Morning Herald reporter of the day.

"I got within 16 yards of the gate when the train struck the bus.

"I saw things going up in the air. A child's body went up in the air with the wreckage."

Survivor, Raphael Italiano, was brought into the inquest on a stretcher and said he had been standing next to the driver. He saw at the level crossing the gate on the northern side was wide open and the gatekeeper was near his cabin. As the bus went over the crossing the women passengers screamed. The bus had stopped between the two sets of rails as the gate on the Brooklyn side was almost closed.

Raphael saw the train approaching and heard a whistle at the same time. The next thing he remembered was finding himself in the gutter about 40 or 50 feet away. He lost four family members in the crash.

Plaque set at Hawkesbury River railway station at Brooklyn. Photo Samantha Elley

Many requests for an overhead bridge had been sought before the tragedy, all to no avail, due to the expense of such an undertaking. The son of the bus driver, who was also killed in the crash, said he and other drivers had had narrow escapes on the same spot.

References

• 'Brooklyn Bus Disaster', The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 5 April, 1944, Page 9

• 'Bridge sought for many years', Daily Mirror, Thursday, 10 February, 1944, Page 7

• 'Crossing Tragedy', The West Australian, Tuesday, 4 April, 1944, Page 2