A view of the overturned train AB748 at Ōngarue in the King Country in 1923.
A regional councillor has called for a long-forgotten railway disaster in the King Country to be officially commemorated. When the Auckland-to-Wellington overnight express AB 748 ploughed into a fresh landslip in Ōngarue, on July 6, 1923, it killed 17 passengers and changed New Zealand history. The incident set a then record of fatalities; transformed medical services at nearby Taumarunui and prompted the almost immediate modernization of trains using the Main Trunk Line. With the centenary of the disaster looming, Horizons Regional Councillor Weston Kirton wants to see the tragedy commemorated, with names of those who perished set into a monument near the crash site.