The Quintinshill rail crash, 1915

The worst rail crash ever to occur in Great Britain, in terms of loss of life, took place early on the morning of 22^nd May 1915, nearly a year after the outbreak of World War I. The site of the crash was Quintinshill signal box, a mile and a half north of Gretna Green, on the border between England and Scotland and on the main west coast line that connects London to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Events leading to the crash

Express trains travelling the whole length of the line could easily suffer delays, and that was the case with the train that had left London Euston shortly before midnight. It was half an hour late when it reached Carlisle and so the decision was made to allow a local train to run ahead of it, rather than behind, and to stop in the loop at Quintinshill to allow the express to pass. Quintinshill had two such loops, on the up and down lines, which were in full view of the signal box.

This procedure was quite common, and it presented an opportunity for the signalman who should have started work at Quintinshill at 6.00am to delay his start until 6.30am. Instead of walking from his home at Gretna he could wait for the local train which he knew was going to stop right outside the signal box as opposed to running on to the next station.

This was an unofficial and unauthorised arrangement and it meant that the outgoing signalman (George Meakin) had to write down all the train movements that took place after 6.00am on a slip of paper so that the incoming signalman (James Tinsley) could write them into the train register when he arrived. The register would therefore have entries for the relevant times in the expected handwriting.

One movement that had taken place during that half hour was that a down (i.e. northbound) goods train had been shunted into the down loop, which meant that the passenger train on which Tinsley had travelled had to reverse across on to the up (southbound) main line to clear the down main  for the express.

Shortly after this, and at the time when Tinsley was climbing the steps to the signal box, a train of empty coal wagons arrived on the up line. This could not be sent on to Carlisle, so Meakin turned it into the up loop.

At the time of the changeover between signalmen there were therefore three trains standing outside the signal box, with only the down main being clear.

Mistakes that led to disaster

George Meakin (the signalman who was about to end his shift) made a mistake by not protecting the up main line by placing a collar on the relevant signal lever. This would have made it impossible for the lever to be pulled and the line therefore cleared. 

The signal box was now occupied by the two signalmen and the brakemen from the two goods trains that were waiting in the loops. Meakin read the newspaper that Tinsley had brought with him and Tinsley started to copy the entries from Meakin’s piece of paper into the train register. Clearly, nobody was giving proper attention to the job in hand as they chatted about this and that.

Next to arrive was George Hutchinson, the fireman of the local train that was waiting on the up main line. Under “Rule 55” it was his task to remind the signalman in person that his train was stopped and thus to ensure that it was duly protected. Meakin handed him a pencil so that he could sign the book that registered his compliance with the rule, but Hutchinson left the box without noticing that the relevant signal lever did not have a collar on it.

James Tinsley meanwhile got on with business by accepting the delayed down express, and he also, inexplicably, accepted an up troop train and set the signals for it. This was only possible because one of the signalmen (and it was disputed who this was) must have indicated to the Kirkpatrick box (the next one up the line) that the line was clear after the coal wagons train had been parked in the up loop. The Kirkpatrick signalman would not have offered the troop train if he had been aware that the line was not clear.

The crash

As it was, the troop train duly arrived at speed and crashed into the stationary local train. The force of the impact was such that a train of 15 carriages that was more than 200 yards long was instantly reduced to one of less than 70 yards in length.

The down express, which weighed more than 600 tons, then arrived and crashed into the wreckage that had spread across all the tracks. Fire broke out and raged furiously, fuelled by the high pressure gas used to provide light and heat on the troop train. The fire burned for more than 24 hours, leaving very little behind.

The troop train had been taking 500 soldiers belonging to the 7^th Battalion of the Royal Scots to Liverpool, where they were due to embark for the Gallipoli campaign. It is not known exactly how many were killed because the battalion roll was lost in the crash, but it is estimated that at least 215 officers and men died and at least as many were injured. None of the survivors were deemed fit to carry on to their destination.

Casualties on the other trains were much lower, with eight deaths on the express and two on the local train. One reason for the huge toll on the troop train was that wartime conditions meant that old railway stock was pressed into service, this being constructed mainly from wood and with old-fashioned gas lighting.

The aftermath

 As this was wartime, news of the disaster was hushed up as much as possible and it was not until after the war was over that the general public got to hear about it. Knowledge of a disaster of this kind on the home front would hardly have helped to boost morale.

The blame for the crash clearly belonged to the two signalmen, both of whom served jail sentences after a criminal trial. George Hutchinson was also charged with negligence for leaving the signal box without ensuring the safety of his train, but he was acquitted.

There have been many serious accidents on Britain’s railways in the years since Quintinshill, but fortunately none that have had such devastating consequences. The technology to prevent such an accident occurring (i.e. the electric block system) already existed in 1915 but the war had prevented it from being adopted universally across the network. Needless to say, that is not the case today.

© John Welford

The Staplehurst rail crash, 1865

The Scene of the Crash

Staplehurst, in Kent, is a station on the line from Folkestone to London Bridge, operated at the time by the South Eastern Railway. A few miles east of the station the railway crosses the River Beult, and this was where the accident took place. The river is not particularly wide but the land on either side is somewhat boggy, so it is bridged by a short viaduct, its height being no more than ten feet above the surface.

In 1865 the bridge was mounted on brick piers, linked by cast iron girders. The girders provided the seating for substantial timber beams on which the rails were laid. There were 32 of these beams and, at the time of the accident, the beams were in the process of being replaced as they were showing signs of excessive wear.

An Engineer at Fault

The engineer in charge of the work was John Benge. Given that the traffic on this railway was not all that frequent, he was able to carry out the work in the intervals between train movements. The rails would be lifted, one or more of the old beams be replaced with new timbers, and the rails relaid in plenty of time for the next train to pass.

The South Eastern Railway laid down strict procedures for warning any train driver who might approach the scene of running repairs on the track. The practice was for detonators to be laid on the track at defined intervals and for a man with a red flag to be posted at the site of the detonator furthest from the work site. (A detonator is an explosive device that produces a flash and a bang when hit by a train wheel but which causes no damage to either the train or the track).

John Benge was, however, so confident that the men could do the work within the “safe time” between trains that he saw no need for the rules to be observed to the letter. Although he was supposed to set detonators at 250 yard intervals up to 1,000 yards, at which point there should be two detonators and the man with the red flag, the man in question was told not to set detonators unless it was foggy (which it wasn’t on 9th June) and to stand only 550 yards along the track.

The foreman’s confidence was due to the fact that the work had proceeded faultlessly for several days and was nearly complete, with 31 of the 32 timber beams already replaced. He also, or so he thought, had a three-hour window in which to finish the work by fitting the final beam. After an “up” train had passed at 2.51pm there was a clear gap of well over an hour before the next “down” train at 4.15pm.

However, there was a complication that also had to be taken on board. This was the boat train that took passengers to London from the “Channel packet” that arrived at Folkestone after crossing the English Channel from Boulogne. The timing of these ferries depended on the state of the tides, and the timing of the boat trains was therefore affected as well.

The boat trains could not be included on the regular timetable but a “working timetable” was produced at short notice for the benefit of railwaymen along the route including anyone, such as John Benge, who was working on the track. Benge had a copy of the working timetable for 9th June, as did his chief carpenter who was shaping the new timbers to fit the spaces on the viaduct.

The problem was that John Benge misread the working timetable. He was convinced that the boat train was not due until 5.20pm, which was well outside his original time frame, but the actual time was 3.15pm. Had he been aware of this he would certainly not have started work at 2.51pm. He was not helped by the fact that the chief carpenter had already lost his copy of the timetable – he dropped it and it was run over by a train. Nobody was therefore in a position to point out the engineer’s error.

The Accident

When the boat train reached the scene it was doing 50 miles an hour. The man with the red flag waved it vigorously but the driver could not respond in time, although he braked as hard as he could and blew his whistle. The guard, who had a patent emergency brake at his disposal, did not see the flag and only applied his ordinary brake when he heard the train’s whistle.

John Benge’s confidence as to his gang’s speed of working was justified to the extent that the new timbers were already laid, but a 21-foot section of rail was not. The engine and the leading van managed to stay upright as they ran across the bare timbers but the following carriages (there were thirteen in total) were not so lucky. The cast-iron girders gave way and the leading passenger carriage fell into the gap, although it was still coupled to the van that had stayed on the viaduct. It therefore hung at an angle but was not otherwise damaged. The next five carriages, however, fell into the river and were wrecked. It was in these that the casualties occurred, with ten deaths and 49 injuries.

The Role of Charles Dickens

One of the passengers in the leading coach, now hanging off the viaduct, was the novelist Charles Dickens. He had been taking a working break at his regular holiday retreat near Boulogne, accompanied by his mistress Ellen Ternan and her mother. He had been looking through the manuscript of his latest novel, “Our Mutual Friend”, when the train crashed, and he mentioned this fact in a postscript to what would prove to be his last completed book.

Dickens helped the passengers in his carriage to escape and then turned his attention to those who were not so lucky. Although the extent of the help he gave has probably been exaggerated it certainly seems to be the case that he kept his head when some others were losing theirs. For example, he calmly let other passengers out of the un-wrecked carriages when the railway workers were running around in a panic.

However, that is not to say that the Staplehurst crash did not have a profound effect on Dickens’s health, because it certainly affected him psychologically. He suffered from what would probably be termed today “post-traumatic stress disorder” and those people who knew him personally before and after the crash testified to the fact he was never the same again. He avoided long train journeys whenever he could (which was by no means always) and in the five years remaining to him he only started one more novel (“The Mystery of Edwin Drood”) which he did not live to complete.

Ironically, he died (from a stroke) exactly five years after the Staplehurst disaster, on 9th June 1870. Had John Benge read his timetable correctly, perhaps “Drood” would have been finished and other novels might have followed in its wake.

© John Welford

The Hull rail crash, 1927

This is an account of a fatal rail accident in Hull, England, in 1927. Despite all the fail-safes built into the signalling system, one sequence of events allowed disaster to occur.

The crash at Hull Paragon station in 1927

The rail crash that occurred at Hull on 14^th February 1927 was one that really should not have happened. That might be said of most accidents, of course, but in this case it would appear that all the systems were in place to prevent two trains meeting head-on on the same track, but there was one small chink in the armour of railway safety and that was enough to lead to the deaths of twelve passengers.

Hull Paragon is a terminus station, from which the lines run westward for about half a mile before branches lead west and north. There are fewer routes from Hull now than there were in 1927, and one of the lines no longer in existence led to Withernsea on the east coast. A train from Withernsea was running into Hull on the morning of 14^th February, the engine being driven by Robert Dixon.

Meanwhile, Sam Atkinson was leaving Hull in charge of a Scarborough service. The two trains should have passed each other without incident.

However, as Driver Atkinson ran under the signal gantry at Park Street, still within sight of the station, he had the strange feeling that his train had been switched on to the wrong track. He checked on both sides of the footplate and, once he was certain that this was so, he slammed on his brakes. However, this was not enough to prevent a collision with Driver Dixon’s approaching train.

Once Driver Atkinson had picked himself up and taken stock of the situation, he ran up the steps of the nearby signal box and demanded to know what had happened.

There were three signalmen on duty, and their aim that morning had been not to allow the approaching Withernsea train to delay the departure of the Scarborough train. They therefore set their signals and points in conjunction so that everything should run as smoothly as possible.

What clearly happened at some stage was that a set of slip points was activated that allowed the Scarborough train to get on to the wrong line. These were controlled by lever 95 in the signal box. The systems in place made it impossible for the lever to be moved unless lever 171, which controlled the signal faced by the Scarborough train, was also moved.

While one signalman was dealing with the Scarborough departure, another was controlling the Withernsea arrival. The levers he needed to operate were 96 and 97.

Lever 171 should not have been returned to danger until the whole train had passed it, by which time it would have cleared the slip points, but, in his hurry to speed things up, the signalman in question moved the lever after only the engine and the first few carriages had passed it.

The other signalman then moved what he thought were levers 96 and 97 but must have been 95 and 96. The slip points controlled by lever 95 were therefore moved during the few seconds between lever 171 being moved and the train reaching the points. Disaster was then inevitable.

Both signalmen were therefore to blame, one for moving lever 171 too soon and the other for moving lever 95 in error. This was therefore a classic case of being too hasty, such that the correct procedure was not followed. Had the signalmen taken more care, even if that meant a train being held at a signal, the accident would not have happened.

© John Welford

The Elliot Junction rail crash, 1906

1906 was a bad year for railway accidents in Great Britain, with derailments at Salisbury and Grantham followed by a serious collision at Elliot Junction, in Scotland, on Friday 28^th December.

  

Elliot Junction

Elliot Junction was a station that no longer exists, as the branch line that it served was closed in 1929. The station lay about one mile south of Arbroath, on the line from Dundee (to the south) to Aberdeen (to the north), which is very much open and running at present. In the photo, the station platform was where the car park is now, and the branch line went in the direction of the distant woods.

The weather at the time of the accident was appalling, with winter having set in hard on the east coast of Scotland. Temperatures were well below freezing and ice hung thick on the telegraph wires. Snow-laden winds blew in from the North Sea where the track ran close to the shore. Thick snow lay on the ground.

The accident

On the morning of the accident there had been another mishap south of Elliot Junction when some goods wagons had become derailed, resulting in one of the two tracks being blocked. Single-line working was therefore in operation for this stretch. However, because of problems with the telegraph line this information was not passed to the signal-box at Arbroath, the next main station to the north.

The 07:35 northbound express service from Edinburgh to Aberdeen was driven by Driver Gourlay, who was highly experienced. He was driving locomotive 324, a 4-4-0 of the 317 class. He was an hour late reaching Arbroath, which he did at 10:41, but that was as far as he was able to go as the lines further north were blocked by snow. The train waited for four hours, in the hope of things improving, but it was eventually decided that it would have to return to Edinburgh.

Normal practice would be for the locomotive to be turned on a turntable so that it could be coupled to the other end of the train and run funnel first, as it had on its northward journey. However, this was not done, and 324 was coupled to run tender first, thus giving the driver and fireman no protection from the elements in their open cab.

Another train needed to head south, this being a local train that was returning to Dundee from Arbroath. This was given a sixteen minute start over the returning express, with Driver Gourlay being warned to take special care.

At Elliot Junction the local train was held at the station while waiting for clearance to proceed through the temporary single-track section, about which the driver had not been told before leaving Arbroath. With the telegraph lines being down the only way to ensure that the track was clear was for a man to walk up and back through the affected section, a total distance of three miles.

The stationmaster at Elliot Junction had just decided to allow the passengers off the train to wait in the comfort of a warm waiting room when the express hurtled out of the snowstorm and hit the local train at about thirty miles an hour.

Three coaches of the local train were wrecked as was the leading coach of the express. Engine 324 fell on its side with the wheels still racing until the driver of the local train could crawl into the cab and close the regulator. Driver Gourlay was pulled out from underneath a pile of coal that had fallen on top of him but he was otherwise uninjured. However, his fireman was dead, as were 21 passengers from the two trains.

The cause of the crash

The blame for the crash lay firmly with Driver Gourlay, whose behaviour had clearly been reckless. For one thing, he was travelling “all stations”, which meant that he should have been preparing to stop at Elliot Junction and not proceeding at speed as he approached the platform. Furthermore, he had been instructed to drive under “caution” conditions which meant that the signalling system was not to be relied upon (due to the snow conditions) and safety was ensured by sending trains off at timed intervals and travelling at similar speeds, with drivers keeping a sharp lookout for obstacles on the line.

In any case, the driver’s visibility was severely curtailed by the conditions under which he was driving, with snow and coal dust blowing straight into his face with the engine running in reverse. This should have made him take extra care, not less.

Another question is why, having passed the obstruction of the blocked line on his way up the line earlier that day, he did not think to mention it to the station staff at Arbroath or the driver of the local train. After all, he did have four hours to kill before starting off back down the line.

Driver Gourlay defended himself at the subsequent enquiry by saying that he thought he had an all-clear signal as he approached Elliot Junction. However, the reason for the signal being slightly depressed (it should have been at a 45 degree angle for the all-clear) was that snow on the controlling wire was weighing it down. On the other hand, when driving under caution conditions, as mentioned above, a signal purporting to show all-clear should itself have been an indication that all was not well, given that all signals should have been in the “stop” position.

He also complained that there was no fog warning at the outer signal. In this he was probably correct, because this was standard practice in poor weather conditions, but it was pointed out that it was hardly reasonable to expect a fogman to stand in a blizzard with a warning lamp when there had been no trains between 09:00 and 15:30.

However, what pointed the finger of blame straight at Driver Gourlay was the fact that, while waiting at Arbroath, he had been “entertained” by a friendly passenger at the Victoria Bar on the station platform. He said that he had only had a single “nip” of whisky and had refused other offers from passengers, but Inspector Pringle, who conducted the enquiry, did not believe this. His conclusion included the words:

“The lack of intelligence, or of caution and alertness, displayed by Driver Gourlay were, in part at all events, induced by drink, the effects of which may possibly have been accentuated after he left Arbroath by exposure to the weather.”

Following the inquiry, Driver Gourlay stood trial and was found guilty by a majority verdict. He was sentenced to five years in prison but this was later remitted.

The inspector also had criticisms to make of the practices employed on the railway at the time, which had become slack under the joint ownership of the Caledonian and North British railway companies, who did not get on well together. The accident would have been avoided had the blockage on the line south of Elliot Junction not occurred, and this was due to an avoidable act of folly by a railway employee.

Under modern signalling and communications conditions, as well as Automatic Train Control, an accident such as that at Elliot Junction is extremely unlikely these days. However, outbreaks of human error and stupidity are always possible, so drivers still need to be aware of their responsibilities, one of which is staying well clear of the station bar!

© John Welford

The Ditton Junction rail crash, 1912

On 17^th September 1912, a late afternoon express train, packed with holidaymakers returning to Liverpool from Chester, left the rails just to the east of Ditton Junction railway station and crashed into the brickwork of the bridge that carried Hale Road over the railway. Thirteen passengers were killed, although a horse had a very lucky escape.

Ditton Junction

Ditton Junction (near Widnes, Cheshire) no longer exists as a station, although the lines from Crewe and Warrington to Liverpool still run past the abandoned and overgrown platforms that were witness to the accident.

The problem at Ditton Junction was that three double tracks approached from the east, to be squeezed into two double tracks before opening again into three doubles as they passed through the station, these being a fast line, a slow line and a goods line. Trains approaching from Crewe, having recently crossed the Runcorn Bridge, would normally proceed along the fast line to Liverpool, but could be switched to the slow line via one of two crossovers that were placed within a hundred yards of each other.

Drivers would be warned that they were about to be crossed by means of signals as they approached the station. There were two distant signals, placed side by side, one for the fast line and the other for the second crossover (crossover B), but nothing for the first crossover (crossover A). Just before crossover A was a gantry with three home signals, for the fast line on the right, the crossover to the slow line (via crossover B) in the middle, and the goods line via crossover A on the left. The confusion for a driver who was unfamiliar with the signalling arrangement was that he could assume, being on the central track of the three as he approached the station, that the central signal applied to him. If it was clear, he might think he was clear to proceed along the fast line at speed if he was not stopping at the station. This was the error that Driver Hughes seems to have made.

The accident

Railway rules stipulated that drivers must be familiar with the route they were using, which included knowledge of all the signalling arrangements they would encounter. However, that cannot be said of Driver Hughes, who had been called in specially to drive this extra holiday express. He told the “arranger of engines” at his home shed that he was “all right for Liverpool”, but that was stretching a point. Most of his runs along this line had been as a fireman, and he had only driven a train through Ditton Junction on ten occasions in four years, and had never been switched to the slow line when doing so.

The train in question consisted of seven coaches headed by “Cook”, a somewhat elderly 2-4-0 Precedent class locomotive with a rigid 15-foot wheelbase that allowed no play in the leading wheels. There were also two horseboxes on the train, between the loco and the first passenger carriage, each carrying one horse and its groom.

Driver Hughes therefore had no suspicion that anything was amiss as he approached Ditton Junction at about 60 miles an hour. However, his train was being switched to the slow line to allow a London express to take the fast line. The first awareness he would have had that anything was amiss was when his locomotive was thrust violently to one side as it reached the crossover at a speed far greater than it could have been expected to negotiate safely.

“Cook” left the rails and slid on its side into the side of the bridge, with the cab and firebox torn completely away from the boiler. Driver Hughes was killed instantly and his fireman died later in hospital. One of the horseboxes was projected all the way over the bridge and landed on the station platform beyond. The horse jumped out, completely unscathed. However, the other horse was not so lucky as its box was cut in half, although the groom survived.

The leading carriages piled up under the bridge and against the station buildings. Nobody survived in the first two carriages, although the passengers in the rest of the train were much more fortunate. In total, thirteen passengers were killed and fifty were injured. Fire broke out in the wreckage, caused by the gas lighting system, and the blaze could not be extinguished for two hours. The dead bodies were therefore burned beyond recognition, but the victims had died as a result of the initial impact.

Who was to blame?

The enquiry was conducted by Lt-Col Yorke, who criticised the signalling arrangement which was inconsistent in having a distant signal for one crossover but not the other, followed by home signals for both crossovers. He also recommended that there should be a speed restriction sign for the fast-to-slow crossover.

The inspector was also critical of the decision to allow an inexperienced driver (of the route) to drive the train. He should have taken on a pilot at Chester.

Such an accident would have been far less likely in later years, partly because of improved signalling and also because the crossover was rebuilt with a much gentler curve. Later steam locomotives would have been better able to survive a sudden lurch to the side, especially those built with a bogie for the leading wheels.

The human cost of the accident, which brought a fun day out for many to such a traumatic end, was summed up by a newspaper reporter who commented: 

“The charred luggage lay in heaps, together with hats, caps, fur boas, luncheon baskets, fruit, sweets and holiday literature”.

© John Welford

The Salisbury rail crash, 1906

The fatal rail accident that occurred at Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 30^th June 1906 had an obvious cause, namely excessive speed leading to a catastrophic derailment, but the mystery as to why the train was going so fast is unlikely ever to be solved.

Salisbury is on the line, then belonging to the London and South Western Railway, that runs from London Waterloo to Exeter and Plymouth. The train in question was a night boat express from Plymouth that was planned to run with only one stop, that being at Templecombe in Somerset to change engines. The train only had five carriages and 48 passengers, who had landed at Plymouth on the liner “New York”.

The engine that was coupled to the train at Templecombe was an express engine under the charge of Driver Robins and Fireman Gadd. The driver was highly experienced and knew the line well. With a powerful engine and a light load it was clearly going to be possible to make a fast run, but Driver Robins was well aware that drivers who arrived too early at their destination were likely to be disciplined. He even said as much to two other railwaymen at Templecombe before he set off.

However, the train was some four minutes behind schedule when it reached Dinton, about two-thirds of the way to Salisbury. It was at this point that Driver Robins started to pile on the speed, averaging 70 miles an hour over the next six miles.

Although the line contains many straight stretches and fast curves, this does not apply through Salisbury itself. The line bends sufficiently sharply for 30 mph restrictions to apply on both sides of the station. However, the signalman in the Salisbury West box was horrified to see the express hurtle past with the whistle screaming.

The train managed to hold the less severe west curve but, having roared through the station, had no hope of staying on the track on the much sharper east curve. The train jumped the rails and ploughed into a milk train that happened to be passing on the other line.

The force of the impact was catastrophic, with the result that half the passengers on the boat train, plus both enginemen, were killed, as were the guard of the milk train and the fireman of a light locomotive that was standing on a passing loop. The track was ripped up for 40 yards and a trench gouged in the track bed to a depth of three and a half feet.

The crash was estimated to have happened at 1.57 a.m., which meant that the average speed of the train since passing Dinton must have been 72 mph.

The question that arose, not surprisingly, was what did Driver Robins think he was doing? He knew about the speed restriction through Salisbury, so why had he ignored it by attempting to pass through the station at more than double the permitted speed? The engine was remarkably unscathed by the crash, and there was no evidence that the regulator had stuck open – indeed, it was actually closed.

One possibility might be that the regulator had indeed stuck open, and that was why Robins had blown the whistle for several hundred yards to the west of the station. Perhaps he had been able to free the regulator just before the crash but had had no time to apply the brake.

There was some speculation at the time that Driver Robins had taken a bet to break a speed record for the journey, or had been tipped by the passengers to make a fast run, but no evidence was found to substantiate this. As noted above, Driver Robins knew all about the consequences of arriving early at Waterloo, so why would he deliberately risk a reprimand and loss of pay by breaking the rule?

As mentioned earlier, this was an accident the cause of which was always going to be difficult to find, given that the people who might have supplied the answer were dead. Any guesses as to the cause, such as the one suggested above, or a sudden medical emergency, will have to stay as guesses.

After the crash the speed limit for trains leaving Salisbury station was reduced to 15 mph. This limit is still in force, as shown in the accompanying photo.

© John Welford

The Hawes Junction rail crash, 1910

The Settle and Carlisle railway is one of the most dramatic and scenic rail routes in the United Kingdom, as it proceeds from south to north along the spine of northern England, namely the Pennine Hills. The Victorian builders of the line had many difficulties to overcome in keeping the route as level as possible, with long tunnels and high viaducts, but the gradients that trains must tackle are still considerable.

Hawes Junction no longer exists, because the line from Northallerton via Hawes that joined the Settle and Carlisle near Garsdale Station was closed many years ago. However, the Settle and Carlisle still operates, and the scene of the Hawes Junction disaster can still be traced.

This is the highest point of the line, and during the days of steam traction was therefore the point at which banker engines which had assisted trains up to this height from either direction could be released from duty. The normal practice was to turn the locomotives round on a turntable and send them back the way they had come, either towards Carlisle to the north or Leeds to the south.

The disaster unfolds

On the night of 24^th December 1910 there were five light locos waiting to be turned, the operations being overseen by Signalman Sutton from his nearby box. The weather that night was awful, with wind and rain lashing the signal-box and making visibility difficult. Two of the engines needed to head north and the other three south. All the movements were witnessed by George Tempest, the driver of one of the locos that was waiting to be turned in order to head back to Leeds.

As Driver Tempest waited he saw the two Carlisle-bound engines, coupled together, move out on to the main line and wait at the signal. By the time that the other Leeds engines had been turned and departed, and Tempest’s own engine had been turned, at least ten more minutes had passed, but the Carlisle engines were still waiting.

When the signal eventually moved to “go” the two engines whistled and started off, but Driver Tempest noticed that the signal did not return to danger. Instead, a few moments later, the night express from London to Glasgow swept through at speed. Tempest knew that this spelled trouble and he went straight to the signal-box to ask Signalman Sutton what was going on.

Sutton was convinced that he had sent the two Carlisle engines much earlier, but Tempest was able to confirm that they had only just gone, with an express train hard on their heels. Despite the terrible weather the two men could see an ominous red glow in the sky in the direction that the engines and the express had gone.

The two engines were not going at any great speed as they passed through Moorcock Tunnel, only a short distance down the line, and on to the Lunds Viaduct. Driver Bath was on the second engine and happened to glance behind him when he saw to his horror the lights of the express emerging from the tunnel. He blew his whistle to alert the other driver and both opened their regulators to increase their speed, but there was no way of avoiding a collision with the express going forty miles an hour faster than they were.

The locomotives remained fairly intact, but the passenger carriages were piled against the side of a cutting and caught fire when their pressurised gas canisters exploded. Driver Bath, despite a badly injured leg, struggled down the line for more than a mile to fetch help, which he got from another driver on a light engine which took him back to the wreck. They did their best to rescue people from the carriages but there were nine fatalities.

Who was to blame?

There was no doubt where the main blame lay, namely with Signalman Sutton who had forgotten about the presence of the light engines that were waiting at the signal, which Sutton cleared only because he was allowing the express through. However, Drivers Scott and Bath were also at fault because they should have followed Rule 55, which requires drivers who are held at a signal for an unexpected length of time to inform the signalman of their presence. According to the inspector who carried out the accident enquiry, the light locos must have been waiting for at least thirteen minutes. It could be that the awful weather made the drivers reluctant to leave their cabs while they hoped that the signal would change “any moment now”.

This was an accident made worse by the use of gas lighting in old rolling stock. Some of the carriages on the express were lit with electricity, and had that been the case throughout the train it is possible that fewer passengers would have died.

Another innovation that would have saved the day was electrical track circuiting which tells signalmen which sections of track are occupied and which are not, thus ensuring that two trains cannot be in a section at the same time. The technology existed in 1910, but it would be some time yet before it was available across the network.

© John Welford

The Grantham rail crash, 1906

The fatal rail crash that occurred at Grantham on 19^th September 1906 must count as the “Mary Celeste” of British rail accidents by virtue of the fact that the cause seems to be inexplicable. What happened is clear enough, but why it did is another matter altogether.

The train that was involved in the crash left London King’s Cross at 8.45pm bound for Edinburgh with scheduled stops that included Peterborough and Grantham. It was a passenger service with sleeping cars, and it was also a mail train. The stop at Peterborough was to change engines and that at Grantham was to pick up mails that would be sorted on board for delivery the next day.

The crew that took on the train at Peterborough comprised Driver Fleetwood and Fireman Talbot. Driver Fleetwood, who had 18 years’ experience, was based at Doncaster and knew the route thoroughly. Colleagues who saw them at Peterborough later testified that both men were in good health and spirits and had certainly not been drinking.

At Grantham the signals were set appropriately for the train to stop, and the points north of the station were set for a goods train to cross the main line to proceed towards Leicester on the Nottingham line. Everything was just as it should be.

Three Post Office employees were waiting on the platform to load the mail bags on to the train that was due at 11.00pm. They were accompanied by the night station inspector. One of the postmen spotted the lights of the approaching train and alerted his colleagues to get ready. However, the train in question was clearly going too fast to stop and at first the postmen assumed that they had been mistaken and that this was a different train that was running through. However, they then saw that their mail van was on the train that was rushing past them.

The men on the platform looked on helplessly as the train disappeared and then seemed to explode in a fireball as it left the rails. They all ran up the line to see what they could do to help.

The train had been switched off the main line by the points that had been set for the Leicester goods train, but it was going too fast to stay upright on the following curve. The locomotive ended up slewed across the track with the front three vehicles piled against it. Six carriages and the tender fell down an embankment and only the last three carriages were left upright on the rails. Fire broke out in the crashed carriages on the track and also in those that were now at the foot of the embankment. As well as the driver and fireman, six passengers and a postal sorter were killed.

Why might it have happened?

All sorts of theories were advanced as to why Driver Fleetwood had not stopped his train at Grantham, but none of them seemed to fit the facts. One such fact was the evidence of the signalman at the Grantham South box who had noticed the driver and fireman standing on either side of the cab looking forward at the line ahead. This did not accord with theories of drunkenness, a fight on the footplate or a sudden illness.

Could Driver Fleetwood simply have forgotten that he had to stop, or had he mistaken where he was on the route? This also seems incredible, given that both men knew the road inside out, and they had also worked exactly the same routine the previous night.

As mentioned above, this looks like a mystery that will never be solved.

© John Welford

The Darlington rail crash, 1928

Darlington Station, on the former London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) between Newcastle and York, is aligned in a rough north-south direction, with the station platforms in a loop on the western side, allowing through trains to pass on the lines to the east. This general pattern, which can be seen in the accompanying photo, is the same today as it was in 1928, when driver error caused the deaths of 25 passengers and serious injuries to 45 others.

Driver Bell was not a regular driver of passenger trains, but a “passed fireman” (aged 32 at the time) who was qualified to drive but had not yet been upgraded to full driver status. His normal work was running light engines between sheds and driving local freight trains.

On the evening of Wednesday 27^th June 1928 he was asked to drive a regular passenger service from Newcastle to Darlington which would then continue as a parcels-only service to York. This was to deputise for the regular driver who was unavailable for duty on that particular day.

Driver Bell had only driven the route once before, although he knew it well from his previous service as a fireman. However, he was not familiar with the particular operation that he was called upon to undertake when he reached Darlington.

In order to convert from a passenger service to a parcels one, the train had to pick up some extra vans that were to be added behind the third van. These vans were waiting for him on a siding that was known as the “middle road”, a stretch of track between the platform line at the south end of the station and the main through line. The middle road joined the platform line at a set of points which was only 48 yards from the points that linked to the main line.

When Driver Bell’s train reached Darlington at 22:45, Shunter Morland was waiting for him. He disconnected between vans three and four, leaving the train with a total length that was too long to clear the points to the middle road without the front being driven beyond the points that connected to the main line before the whole train could be reversed.

There were two signals that controlled this operation. One was the number 8 signal that allowed a train to advance as far the number 18 signal that protected the main line. With the number 8 signal in his favour, Driver Bell moved forward.

However, he clearly believed that this signal gave him permission to drive all the way forward on to the main line before reversing back on to the middle road. On this occasion the main line was being held open for an 11-coach excursion train from Scarborough to Newcastle that was due to pass through. The number 18 signal, on a gantry of three signals, was therefore at danger, but Driver Bell ignored this and carried on.

Shunter Morland was riding on the third parcels van and realised that Driver Bell had run past the number 18 signal. He applied the brake, not so much to stop the train as to give a warning to the driver. When he heard a whistle he assumed that the warning had been noted and was being acknowledged.

However, the whistle was not from Driver Bell’s engine but from the approaching excursion train, the driver of which had seen the line blocked by the shunting train which was still moving forward with the engine now completely on the main line. When Shunter Morland realised his error he applied the brake fully and had nearly stopped his train when the excursion train hit it.

The signalman in the box just south of the points in question was not aware the Driver Bell had run through the number 18 signal until he heard a strange noise that was caused by a train running against points that were closed to it. His immediate reaction was to throw all signals to danger, but this was too late to prevent a collision as the excursion train hit Driver’s Bell’s locomotive head-on at about 45 miles an hour.

Driver Bell’s engine was forced backwards along the main line for about 60 yards but stayed upright on the rails, although the vans behind it were completely destroyed. The engine of the excursion train, driven by Driver McNulty, fell on to its side but the carriages were not derailed. Most of the casualties were in the second carriage and were caused when the underframe of the third carriage sliced through it.

Although both drivers and the fireman were seriously injured, the luckiest crewman was Shunter Morland, whose van was demolished around him without causing him serious injury.

Most of the victims on the excursion train were women, fourteen of them being on a Mothers’ Union outing from Hetton-le-Hole, a mining village between Durham and Sunderland. The effect on the community was similar to that of a mining tragedy, but with grieving widowers instead of widows.

Enquiry

The enquiry, conducted by Colonel Pringle, could only reach one conclusion, which was that the blame fell squarely on the shoulders of Driver Bell for not taking note of signal number 18 at danger. The point was made that even if he had known which of the three signals on the gantry applied to him, the fact that all three were at danger should have alerted him. He should also have sought advice from Shunter Morland if he was unsure about the signalling system in place, as this was a strange yard to him.

There were mitigating factors, one being that the positioning of the gantry to the left of the track as Bell approached it, as opposed to the number 8 signal which was on the right, might have given him the impression that none of the signals applied to him. Other drivers in the past had commented that this arrangement was confusing. One of Colonel Pringle’s recommendations was that colour light signalling, with one three-aspect signal for each line, should be installed. This was eventually done 11 years later.

The inspector also had some words of criticism for Shunter Morland, who should have applied his brake fully when he first became aware that Driver Bell had overrun signal number 18. In Morland’s defence, he would not have known that an excursion train was due at any moment and so would not have been aware of the imminent danger. He knew the regular timetable backwards, and would no doubt have told Driver Bell to expect to wait for a scheduled service to pass, but that was not the case that evening.

1928 was a very bad year for railway accidents in Great Britain, with a total of 57 fatalities in 13 accidents. Darlington was the second of three accidents within a six-month period that involved mistakes made while shunting, all of which could have been prevented with the use of Automatic Train Control, but that would not be generally applied for another 30 years.

© John Welford