six o’clock in the
morning
About a quarter past three in the morning , twenty-five minutes after leaving Castlemaine , it arrived at Camden Bridge , where the terrible disaster befell . The passengers and guards of the last and only remaining carriage at once tried to obtain help . But the telegraph , whose posts were lying on the ground , could not be worked . It was three hours before the authorities from Castlemaine reached the scene of the accident , and it was six o'clock in the morning when the salvage party was organized , under the direction of Mr. Mitchell , the surveyor-general of the colony , and a detachment of police , commanded by an inspector . The squatters and their `` hands '' lent their aid , and directed their efforts first to extinguishing the fire which raged in the ruined heap with unconquerable violence . A few unrecognizable bodies lay on the slope of the embankment , but from that blazing mass no living thing could be saved . The fire had done its work too speedily .