Sunshine rail disaster

Sunshine rail disaster

One of the destroyed carriages after the accident. The intact roof of a carriage can be seen on the left.
Location within Melbourne
Date	20 April 1908
Time	10:50 pm
Location	Sunshine, Victoria 13.5 km (8.4 mi) NW from Melbourne
Coordinates	37°47′17″S 144°49′57″E / 37.7881°S 144.8325°E / -37.7881; 144.8325Coordinates: 37°47′17″S 144°49′57″E / 37.7881°S 144.8325°E / -37.7881; 144.8325
Country	Australia
Rail line	Bendigo railway line Ballarat railway line
Operator	Victorian Railways
Type of incident	Rear-end collision
Statistics
Trains	2
Deaths	44
Injuries	400+

The Sunshine rail disaster occurred on 20 April 1908 at the junction at Sunshine railway station when a Melbourne-bound train from Bendigo collided with the rear of a train from Ballarat. 44 people were killed and over 400 injured, almost all of them from the Ballarat train, as the Bendigo train was cushioned by its two locomotives.

A temporary mortuary was set up at Melbourne's Spencer Street Station to deal with the dead and wounded, who were transported from Sunshine by special relief trains. The disaster is Victoria's worst railway accident in terms of deaths, and is Australia's second-worst after the 1977 Granville rail disaster.

The susbsequent coronial inquiry found that the two drivers of the Bendigo train as well as the Sunshine stationmaster had a manslaughter case to answer, although all three were later acquitted by the Supreme Court of Victoria.

At 6:30 pm and 7:15 pm on 20 April, two heavily loaded passenger trains left the regional cities of Ballarat and Bendigo respectively. 20 April was an Easter Monday and therefore the end of a long weekend in Victoria. Fine weather had encouraged large numbers of people to leave Melbourne by train on the Saturday, and many were returning on the Monday evening. As a result, both trains were crowded, and the Ballarat train had been extended beyond its normal length.