HI,

Was resarching some information and came across this rare video

www.mashpedia.com/kempsey_bus_crash

A reminder of one of the darkest days in the Bus and Coach industries history.

Regards Jeff Chalker

Think it disgusting that they repaired both coaches myself, yeah, yeah, I know the economic argument about the assets, but after so many deaths ?
William

Hi Rustbucket
Both coaches were destroyed along with the Vin no's due to the sensitivity to all the people that had died in the accident.

Further to the clarification from Rod, all that was used from the original vehicles was the engine trans and rear axle combination.

DS1716 wrote:Further to the clarification from Rod, all that was used from the original vehicles was the engine trans and rear axle combination.

Still not good karma to use any items related to those units - economics or not - no different to using parts from an air crash on another aircraft or the steering wheel from a wrecked ship on another vessel...

Surely there would be less deaths/injuries if they were semitrailer buses rather than having a rear engine that keeps pushing them along.

Maybe with today's technology coaches would be safer overall having a prime mover.

What did they end up blaming?

Surely there would be less deaths/injuries if they were semitrailer buses rather than having a rear engine that keeps pushing them along.

Wouldn't that introduce a new risk of jackknifing? How often does this happen with normal prime mover + trailer?

eddy wrote:Surely there would be less deaths/injuries if they were semitrailer buses rather than having a rear engine that keeps pushing them along.

Maybe with today's technology coaches would be safer overall having a prime mover.

What did they end up blaming?

McCafferty's would have taken a bit of a hit (literally) over this given the that the root cause appeared to be the McCaff's driver falling asleep at the wheel - I was driving the exact route at the time for Sunliner Express on an overnight charter to SYD ( I came close to being rostered onto the Cowper (Grafton) crash shift...passed him going in the opposite direction around 45 minutes before the crash happened) and I know from my experience that this roster and timetable created fatigue in many drivers at that time, given that you where getting into Kempsey very late with a lot of pickups and setdowns on the way and travelling on one of the most demanding stretches of highway in Australia at the time, mainly due to it being a narrow gutted piece of tarmac with no runoff areas and incredibly winding...hard enough in the daylight...our departure time was 1800hrs from Roma Street with the sun dipping rapidly and all night driving arriving Kempsey at around 0220am - if you did this roster for more than 4 days straight (which you were bound to do, due to the pilots strike and a lack of interstate drivers) you ran the risk of fatigue in a very short space of time...hence I believe, this is why the Clybucca crash occurred.

NOTE: 25 years since Cowper (Grafton) and Clybucca (Kempsey) Bus Crashes occurred this October 19 th and 22nd December 2014 - Vale

krustyklo wrote:

Surely there would be less deaths/injuries if they were semitrailer buses rather than having a rear engine that keeps pushing them along.

Wouldn't that introduce a new risk of jackknifing? How often does this happen with normal prime mover + trailer?

Yes it may introduce a new risk but even then I think passengers would be more protected with a prime mover in front of them.

I tried to find the statistics on semitrailers jacknifing but they are all relatively old and to compare today's braking systems with even 20 years ago is like saying in 1900 man will never fly because we tried it once and it did not work.

In 1965 I drove a tipper with a float behind (even no indicators) and the trailer only had a hand controlled vacuum brake set up so you could count to three before the trailer brakes came on.

Where I got my info was Wikipedia, it is pretty detailed as shown below, so if this is not correct how does this info get out there ?
I think it may have just been the VIN's destroyed ?

"Following the collision and despite the extensive damage incurred, both coaches were rebuilt by Denning, being completed in June 1990 and allocated body numbers 1378 (Trans City - original body 1238) and 1379 (McCafferty's - original body 1335). After the demise of Trans City in March 1992, its fleet was sold off and McCafferty's was among the purchasers, buying three coaches including the one involved in the accident. Both of the coaches involved in the Kempsey collision remained in service with McCafferty's for more than a decade.

The McCafferty's coach from the Kempsey crash was involved in another accident exactly 14 years later, in the early hours of 22 December 2003. On this occasion the coach was travelling south towards Rockhampton on the Bruce Highway when it was involved in a head-on collision with a truck. On this occasion there were no fatalities, with six people suffering minor injuries. However, the coach was damaged beyond economic repair and was written off."

Rustbucket

Shocked to see this for the first time, as it was before my time and before my parents moved to Oz. Glad to see that when I went o the Pacific Hwy last year, it is much better than it is now. I hope nothing like that ever happens ever again.

rustbucket wrote:Where I got my info was Wikipedia, it is pretty detailed as shown below, so if this is not correct how does this info get out there ?
I think it may have just been the VIN's destroyed ?

"Following the collision and despite the extensive damage incurred, both coaches were rebuilt by Denning, being completed in June 1990 and allocated body numbers 1378 (Trans City - original body 1238) and 1379 (McCafferty's - original body 1335). After the demise of Trans City in March 1992, its fleet was sold off and McCafferty's was among the purchasers, buying three coaches including the one involved in the accident. Both of the coaches involved in the Kempsey collision remained in service with McCafferty's for more than a decade.

The McCafferty's coach from the Kempsey crash was involved in another accident exactly 14 years later, in the early hours of 22 December 2003. On this occasion the coach was travelling south towards Rockhampton on the Bruce Highway when it was involved in a head-on collision with a truck. On this occasion there were no fatalities, with six people suffering minor injuries. However, the coach was damaged beyond economic repair and was written off."

Rustbucket

Excuse my language here, but that is creepy as **! Perfect example of why YOU DON'T REUSE PARTS OF A VEHICLE INVOLVED IN A SIGNIFICANT FATAL ACCIDENT!!!!

As as extra to this conversation.
yes both coaches were re built using only the running gear. yes McKaffs ended up purchasing the Trans city coach when they got out of the express game, Yes the McKaffs coach had another accident and was written off, the TransCity Coach was on sold as a motor home and is possibly still in use somewhere. I also know the staff at the time at both business didn't want to drive/clean or work on them because of the accidents
Also to the point of saving more lives if a prime mover set up. no. it was very clear that most of the fatalities and serious injuries (mine included) were caused by seats coming away from Anchor points and bodies being thrown around on impact. I know because I was there and at the Coroners inquest the whole time. Regardless of Wikipedia says

In the railway world reusing parts from fatal accidents isn't unheard of at all. There's hundreds of instances where damaged rolling stock has been stripped for parts to use on others, or to just be rebuilt or repurposed.