Got Him - by Gail Whitten

In the early 1970s my eight- and ten-year-old sons and I stood five or six metres along the footpath of the railway bridge between Tauranga and Mount Maunganui with our fishing lines in the water. We wanted a good catch for dinner. We'd travelled from Hamilton and hadn't seen any sign against fishing there.

Tiddlers kept stealing the bait, but since two men had passed us to go further along the bridge with their fishing rods, we reasoned there must be worthwhile fish to be caught and we'd keep trying. It was difficult getting the line in the water because of all the iron framework. Often we had to cut the line and loose hook, some line and sinker because our lines had snagged on that.

Then we heard the faint rumble in the far distance of a train coming. We'd had enough. We didn't want to be so close to a moving train either, so we wound our lines in.

We were about to pick up the bait bucket, when a man, his face as grey as death and sweating profusely, rushed towards us from further down the bridge.

"Look out," he gasped. "Train's got him." And he rushed past to get help.

Our stomachs turned with the horror of it.

We learned later that the man had climbed onto the railway lines to untangle his line. He hadn't heard or seen the train coming.

It was a shocking way for us all to end a fishing trip.