Mandurah train hit by bottle

by Kirsty Duncan

April 4, 2008

COMMON sense was thrown out the window on April 4, as a southbound train on the new Mandurah line was targeted by ignoramuses. 

A full plastic Coke bottle struck a train window just after 7am, having been hurled from an early 1990s white Ford Falcon cruising adjacent to the train, near Canning Bridge Station. The vehicle and train were southbound.

David Williams, journalism lecturer at Murdoch University, had a prime seat for the spectacle.

“I saw the [Falcon’s] window wound down and the driver looking a bit agitated and thought ‘hey, what’s this guy doing’?” Williams relayed.

Williams then saw the bottle being passed from a backseat passenger to the driver, and lobbed out the window, toward his train window.

Carrying a pen at all times, Williams was able to get the car’s details.

“It was just lucky the bottle was plastic,” he said. “What if it had gone through the driver’s window?

“It was a senseless act.”

The impact was enough to prompt the driver to exit the train at Canning Bridge Station and investigate. Williams later told the engineer what had happened.