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1900. However traffic figures for Tinwald—50,423 sheep and nearly 9000 tons of grain sent out in that same year—show that much more was loaded at the flag stations on the line. In fact it was considered to be one of the best paying branches in New Zealand. Wright, again member for Ashburton, assumed as much in 1897 when he forwarded a petition asking for sheep yards at Springburn. Moreover, in spite of an initial refusal from the department, he got the yards both there and at Anama. Requests and suggestions for further extensions—proposals for a spur line to Mayfield and of a light railway to Longbeach are examples—show that the Mount Somers branch was performing a useful if limited function.

Passenger traffic formed a large item only at Ashburton, where the numbers of people buying tickets each year varied from 18,000 to 25,600 or about sixty to eighty a day. The total was often considerably increased by the numbers leaving on train picnics. During March 1895 excursion trains took 2500 people to Christchurch and 2661 to Timaru. Similarly many organisations held picnics in Ashburton, the domain being the attraction.

Thus it was that on 11 March 1899 some 3000 persons arrived at Ashburton station in two trains on the occasion of the annual picnic of the Christchurch Meat Company, Islington. Unfortunately the weather was ‘atrocious’. Hundreds remained in the carriages all day or hung about the platform. Others were given shelter and entertainment in the Arcade. As many as possible crowded on the first return train at 6 p.m.; but the second was delayed, chiefly because of difficulty with men who had spent the day in hotel bars.

As was quite normal under the circumstances, the driver of the second train, Charles Henry Carter, hurried to make up lost time. He expected to have a clear run through, but the lateness of a southbound train meant that the first excursion train was held at Rakaia. The driving rain obscured Carter’s vision and he mistook the origin of the various train lights at the station. A clerk with a signalling lamp gave him the first warning, allegedly at three hundred yards from the platform. He applied the brakes on the engine and tender and whistled for those on the van. The three short blasts of the signal also warned the drivers of the two engines on the stationary train and they got it under way. People, alarmed, jumped clear. As a result, the impact demolished only the van and