The makers of last night's TV One telemovie seemed to think there was more drama on a cricket pitch than on the train that crashed into a lahar swollen river in the central North Island on Christmas Eve 1953 with the deaths of 151 people. The total train scenes amounted to at best about 10% of the running time. And did they make any Rob Merrifield-style goofs? Yes. The train upon leaving Wellington station in 1953 would have been hauled as far as Paekakariki by an EW class electric, and steam loco KA 949 would have been attached there. And the platform at Taihape would have been on the other side of the train heading north.
Bringing Maori beliefs into anything that gets official funding is obligatory nowadays, however, in the 1880s the Maori had made a gift of the NIMT central section roadbed through their tribal domain so the views of the Maori woman shown are unlikely. And David Sims in his own TV analysis debunked the popular belief of Cyril Ellis running along the track waving his torch at the oncoming train, but it was back in again. Oh well.
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