Truckie spared jail over train derailment

THE truck driver responsible for last year’s major train derailment between Old Junee and Marrar has avoided jail.

Ian Richard Wishart was sentenced over the costly March 2023 crash in Wagga Wagga District Court today.

The 55-year-old was behind the wheel of a semi-trailer carrying ballast when he failed to stop at a level crossing on Canola Way and collided with an empty freight train, causing it to derail.

Four of the train’s locomotives and 17 wagons were damaged in the collision. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured.

The rail line was closed for three weeks following the crash, as cranes were called in to clear the wreckage and crews worked to replace over 200m of damaged track.

The derailment cost tax payers $3.5 million, while the closure of the key freight line robbed the business community of almost $100 million as it hampered the collection of grain from Coolamon, Grong Grong and Narrandera, and impacted the movement of wine out of Griffith.

Southern Shorthaul Railroad also took a multi-million dollar hit, with director Jason Ferguson telling the ABC it was the biggest incident the company had faced in 20 years.

“It knocked us for six…all up it cost us $16 million,” he said. “Some of that’s covered by insurance but there’s gaps there that we still need to deal with.”

Wishart pleaded guilty to endangering the safety of person/s on the railway and not stopping at a level crossing, and was sentenced to a community corrections order of two-and-a-half years and fined $2,500 in Wagga Wagga District Court on Wednesday.