The Blue Mountains Gazette 2/10/1985 says that there was a train smash at 5am on Monday 30/9/1985 on the Lapstone hill that caused five casualties. A passenger train and a goods train, proceeding in opposite directions, collided in darkness between the Knapsack Gully Bridge and the Emu Plains railway bridge. The passenger train was going up the hill when the right side front section of the passenger train crashed into two derailed container trucks on the goods train, which were still in motion.
The leading carriage was sliced by the other train, mounted an embankment and partly rolled into the rear grounds of a home, then owned by Ian Redman, of Emu Plains. Three other carriages were extensively damaged by the heavy impact, at an estimated speed of 55 km/h. The tracks were also ripped up and twisted.
The driver of the passenger train, Norman Hazelgrove, suffered lacerations to his head. His two trainee drivers were also injured; David Olsen suffered wounds to his knees, forehead and shoulder, while Louis Fressard had lacerations to his hand. Passengers Bevan Thompson, from Katoomba, sustained back injuries, and Stephen Whitehead, from Emu Plains, had lacerations to an ear. They were all taken by ambulance to Nepean Hospital.
Luckily, the driver and crew of the goods train, along with six other passengers, weren’t hurt. There was no indication of the cause of the incident.
