ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME: Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner

COLLECTION: 4700.0578

IDENTIFICATION: Britons in pre-Independence India

INTERVIEWER: Frank De Caro, Rosan Jordan

PROJECT: British Voices in South Asia

DATES: 3/8/78 FOCUS DATES: 1930s-1940s

Tape 853, Side A

Inquiry and rumors about submarine in the harbor who had fired a torpedo; earthquakes; investigating railway accidents, most are straightforward; the mystery of one particular accident at Dina Pur (continued from tape 852), he was in charge of re-enacting accident to resolve conflicting claims regarding the deformation of the track; rebuild site for re-enactment, collected a train with the same number of coaches and weighted them with sandbags; arranged it so that the vacuum brake was working, placed an internal combustion engine to activate the brake system; arranged telescope on the front of the train; building a large buffer across the track; arranged derailment by opening a joint; used an eight-speed engine to push the train to gain speed (45 mph); then watched the crash in broad daylight, the first time anyone was ever prepared to watch a railway accident; re-enactment indicated that the engine was at fault, eventually they had to redesign it; moving picture cameras, he filmed the incident but sold his camera after it began to deteriorate; a bogey is a four-wheeled, two-axle track upon which cars and locomotives sit; railwaymen got a lot of travel time, as did the ICS men; he was born in India and it was expected that he would serve overseas, probably India; Calcutta was distinct--@a little nation of its own@, crowded; Bombay, you found people, entire families, sleeping on the pavements; people often climbed on the roof of trains because of crowds; Richard was involved in theatrical plays, miniature theaters; he also dove and swam a lot in Rangoon.