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Fri 23 Jun 1911 - The Blue Mountain Echo (NSW : 1909 - 1928)
Page 4 - SHOCKING FATALITY AT GLENBROOK.
Shocking Fatality at Glenbrook.
At about eleven o'clock on Friday
morning last a fearful accident happened
at the Glenbrook deviation, causing the
death of two young men both about 25
years of age. Blasting operations were
being carried on in a side cutting over-
looking a deep ravine. A huge rock
boulder had been shifted from its base
but the charge had been insufficient to
break it up, or precipitate it into the
creek below. It hung balanced upon
the brink and a gang immediately set
to work to 'pop' the boulder. Just
prior to the accident there were six men
on the rock, but for some reason four
of them got off, leaving James McNicol
(a new arrival from Scotland) and a
man named Webber from Melbourne on
the boulder. The gigantic mass over-
balanced and crashed into the valley,
smashing the two unfortunate men to a
pulp. An Echo representative was
shown over the scene of the sad fatality
on Saturday, It was a huge precipi-
tous bluff which is being excavated, in
such a way to give a level track for the
new railway being constructed to re-
duce the grade over the Mountains.
Over 20 men were working on the rock
ten minutes before it gave way. By
units they retired to other places, and
just prior to the fatality only three were
on the bluff. One— a ganger — asked a
fellow workman for a pipe of tobacco,
and the latter replied—' Righto, you'll
find the weed over in my coat near the
bush. ' The ganger walked off the rock,
and a second afterwards it commenced
to slip away. Webber and Nicholls
(both young and active men) jumped in
the air in the hope of reaching sound
footing, but the sliding rock (weighing
several hundred tons) spoilt their spring
and they fell headlong down the Moun-
tain after the huge mass. The debris
crushed on top of them, killing them
instantly. The bodies were taken by
special train on the following day and
interred in their last resting place,
scores of navvies accompanying the re-
mains to the cemetery. The accident
cast quite a gloom over the camp.
Sentiment, among a number of navvles,
is usually an unknown quantity, but
the sudden and tragic ending of two of
their comrades gave the men food for
serious thought.