Abermule station in 1953, looking north-east towards Welshpool. There are few changes since 1921. The station buildings are on the up platform to the left, the signal box on the down platform to the right.
The Abermule train collision was a head-on collision which occurred at Abermule, Montgomeryshire, Wales, on Wednesday, 26 January 1921, killing 17 people.[1][2] The crash arose from misunderstandings between staff which effectively over-rode the safe operation of the Electric Train Tablet system protecting the single line. A train departed carrying the wrong tablet for the section it was entering and collided with a train coming the other way.
To protect the single line sections, Tyer's Electric Train Tablet apparatus was used. Two linked tablet instruments were used on each section, one at each end. To allow a train to proceed into the section, a call button would be pressed on one instrument, alerting the operator at the other end of the section. If the other operator was able to accept the train, he would then press a release button on his instrument, which allowed a tablet (a metal plate inscribed with the name of the section) to be withdrawn from the caller's instrument. The tablet would then be placed inside a pouch fitted with a metal loop (which allowed it to be easily picked up or handed over by a train crew while in motion) and given to the driver of the train as proof of his authority to occupy the section. Until the tablet was replaced in one of the instruments, another tablet could not be withdrawn from either of them. Tablets of adjacent sections had differently-shaped and -positioned holes and notches in them to prevent a tablet being inserted into wrong instrument.
This system had protected the Cambrian Railways for many years. There was a weakness at Abermule, in that the electric tablet machines and the other block telegraph instruments were kept in the main station buildings, while the signals were worked from a separate signal box at the east end of the station, and some of the points from a ground frame at the other end of the station. Regulations specified that only the stationmaster or signalman were to work the tablet machines, but it was common for both to be occupied with duties away from the station buildings, and it became accepted practice for any member of the station staff to work them.
Collision
The section of the Cambrian Railways adjacent to Abermule Station, where the accident occurred
Shortly before midday on 26 January 1921, a west-bound stopping train from Whitchurch and an east-bound express from Aberystwyth were approaching Abermule from opposite directions, and were due to cross there. The regular Abermule Stationmaster, Parry, was on leave, and Relief Stationmaster Lewis, who was deputising for him, had gone for his lunch. The other three station staff at Abermule were Signalman Jones, Porter Rogers, who was seventeen, and a trainee booking clerk named Thompson, who was only fifteen years old.
The staff at Montgomery station requested clearance for the stopping train to run to Abermule, and Signalman Jones pressed the release on the tablet instrument for the Montgomery-Abermule section, allowing the train to proceed. He then checked that the express was running to time, and was informed that it had just passed Moat Lane Junction on the far side of Newtown, as scheduled. Jones went to the signal box to open the level crossing gates and clear the signals for the stopping train. Meanwhile, Relief Stationmaster Lewis returned from his lunch. A permanent way sub-inspector attracted his attention with an urgent enquiry, and he immediately went with the sub-inspector to the goods yard, without entering the instrument room or inquiring as to the position of any trains approaching Abermule.
Newtown station then requested permission for the express to proceed to Abermule. Porter Rogers pressed the release on the tablet machine for the Newtown-Abermule section which allowed it to do so. He then went to the ground frame at the west end of the station to set the points for the express, but found the frame locked against him because Jones had already "set the road" for the stopping train to arrive on the down road. While Rogers was occupied at the ground frame, Newtown signalled that the express was entering the Newtown-Abermule section. However, there was no-one in the Abermule station buildings to note the signal.
Before Porter Rogers could call to Signalman Jones to release the ground frame lock, the stopping train arrived. The youth, Thompson, collected the tablet for the Montgomery-Abermule section from the driver of the stopping train, and was heading back to the station buildings to put it in the tablet instrument when he met Lewis returning from the goods yard. He gave the tablet to Lewis, saying that he had to go and collect the tickets (although only one passenger had alighted from the train). He did not mention that he had yet to exchange the tablet for one for the Abermule-Newtown section (which he could not have done, because the Abermule-Newtown tablet machine was still locked). Thompson also mistakenly told Lewis that the express was still "about Moat Lane", presumably from having overheard some of Jones's earlier telephone conversation.
Lewis assumed that because the express had apparently not reached Newtown, the two trains would cross at Newtown rather than Abermule, and he did not look at the tablet closely enough to see that it was the one for the Montgomery-Abermule section that had just been handed over by the driver of the stopping train. He crossed back to the down platform and, because the driver was oiling around the engine, handed the tablet back to the stopping train's fireman, who did not notice the error either. Lewis gave the "Right away" signal by hand. Jones, who was also on the down platform, assumed that the express had been delayed or held at Newtown for some reason. Rogers, who was still at the ground frame, assumed the same, because of Lewis's actions and because the frame was locked, and so he lowered the down advance starting signal. Lewis, Jones and Rogers did not realise the truth until the stopping train had already departed.
The express was travelling at about 50 miles per hour (80km/h) and the crew were about to begin slowing for the arrival at Abermule, when they saw the stopping train heading for them on the same track. Although they immediately braked, they could not stop in time. The crew of the stopping train did not appear to have seen them, because they continued to put on steam. The crew of the express were just able to jump clear in time, although they were both severely injured. Fifteen passengers, including a director of the railway, Lord Herbert Vane-Tempest, and the driver and fireman of the stopping train, were killed in the collision.
After the crash, Driver Pritchard Jones of the express train was desperately concerned that he had made an error, until his fireman, Owen, retrieved both their own correct tablet for the section and the tablet for the Montgomery-Abermule section from the wreckage. The tablets were handed to the Traffic Controller for the Cambrian Railways, who had been travelling on the stopping train, and the Chief Traffic Inspector, who had been a passenger on the express. The Inspector (George) took the Montgomery-Abermule tablet on foot to Abermule station and replaced it in the correct machine in the presence of witnesses, to allow a breakdown train from Oswestry to reach the scene of the crash and assist with freeing the injured.[3]
The engines involved were 4-4-0 passenger locomotives, no. 95 of the 94 Class was hauling the express from Aberystwyth, and no. 82 of the 61 Class was hauling the stopping train from Whitchurch. Both were reduced to wreckage and written off. There was severe telescoping of the passenger carriages, especially in the express train, which caused most of the casualties. This was apparently the result of the collision occurring on a slight curve, causing the buffers to be slightly misaligned, and allowing the fourth carriage of the express to override the buffers of the third.[4][5]
Causes and lessons
The obvious cause of the Abermule collision was the unauthorised working of the tablet machines by anyone who happened to be around, and the failure of the staff at Abermule to notify each other of their actions. The slack working practices had been allowed to develop over several years by Stationmaster Parry and Signalman Jones.
A contributory cause was the failure of anyone to examine the tablet they received by removing it from its pouch and checking that it was the correct one. Although inspection of the tablet was required in the working rules, it was clearly taken for granted that the tablet was correct, since the system had worked faultlessly for years. Indeed, for anyone to ostentatiously examine a tablet may have been a breach of etiquette, as it would imply that the person handing it over might not be competent or trustworthy. Driver Pritchard Jones and Fireman Owen of the express train were conscientious in inspecting every tablet they received; the crew of the stopping train were not.
Finally, the awkward layout of tablet instruments, signals and points levers at Abermule meant that it was possible for conflicting movements to be made. The inquiry recommended that tablet machines be placed in the signal box under the sole control of the signalman, and also that starting signals (which gave trains authority to leave the station) be interlocked with the tablet instruments, so that they could not be cleared until the correct tablet had been released. However, this would involve the rebuilding of the station buildings and signal boxes at Abermule and several other small stations, and it was suggested that alternate single-line sections use the electric tablet system and the older electric staff system; there would be no possibility of mistaking a staff for a tablet. The signalling method continued in use on the line until 1988, when it was replaced by the Radio Electronic Token Block system.[6]
The obvious, though costly, solution to the problems of working single lines would be to double the tracks. As finances allowed, the Cambrian Railways (and the Great Western Railway, with which the Cambrian amalgamated in January 1922 as a consequence of the Railways Act 1921) had been slowly carrying out the necessary work. British Rail actually removed much of the doubled track and some of the crossing stations as part of the Beeching Axe.
In August 2019, two passenger trains travelling towards each other entered a single track section on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, a light excursion railway in Kent. Although both trains stopped 312m (1,024ft) apart before any collision occurred, a subsequent safety investigation cited the Abermule accident as having "clear parallels with the events leading up to the incident at Romney Sands".[7]
↑ Davies, F.K.; Firth, J.M.; Lucking, J.H.; Thomas, R.E.; Allcock, N.J.; Sterndale, A.C.; Barrie, D.S.M.; Reed, P.J.T.; Mountford, E.R. (April 1966). White, D.E. (ed.). The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part ten: Absorbed Engines, 1922-1947. RCTS. pp.K66–K67, K73. ISBN0-901115-20-7.
↑ Gourvish, Terence; Anson, Mike (2002). British Rail, 1974-97: from integration to privatisation. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p.211. ISBN978-0-19-925005-9.
In railway signalling, a token is a physical object which a train driver is required to have or see before entering onto a particular section of single track. The token is clearly endorsed with the names of the section to which it belongs. A token system is more commonly used for single lines because of the greater risk of collision in the event of a mistake being made by a signaller or traincrew than on double lines.
The Cambrian Railways owned 230 miles (370 km) of track over a large area of mid Wales. The system was an amalgamation of a number of railways that were incorporated in 1864, 1865 and 1904. The Cambrian connected with two larger railways with connections to the northwest of England via the London and North Western Railway, and the Great Western Railway for connections between London and Wales. The Cambrian Railways amalgamated with the Great Western Railway on 1 January 1922 as a result of the Railways Act 1921. The name is continued today in the route known as the Cambrian Line.
The Cambrian Line, sometimes split into the Cambrian Main Line and Cambrian Coast Line for its branches, is a railway line that runs from Shrewsbury, England, westwards to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli in Wales. Passenger train services are operated by Transport for Wales Rail between the western terminals of Pwllheli, in Gwynedd, and Aberystwyth, in Ceredigion, and the eastern terminal at Shrewsbury, Shropshire, as part of the Wales & Borders franchise. The railway line is widely regarded as scenic, as it passes through the Cambrian Mountains in central Wales, and along the coast of Cardigan Bay in Snowdonia National Park.
Abermule is a village lying on the River Severn 6 km northeast of Newtown in Powys, mid Wales. The A483 Swansea to Chester trunk road, the Cambrian Line railway, connecting Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury, and the Montgomery Canal, close to the river, all pass through Abermule. The village had a population of 900 as of the 2011 census.
The Charfield railway disaster was a fatal train crash which occurred on 13 October 1928 in the village of Charfield in the English county of Gloucestershire. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) Leeds to Bristol night mail train failed to stop at the signals protecting the down refuge siding at Charfield railway station. The weather was misty, but there was not a sufficiently thick fog for the signalman at Charfield to employ fog signalmen. A freight train was in the process of being shunted from the down main line to the siding, and another train of empty goods wagons was passing through the station from the Bristol (up) direction.
The Winwick rail crash took place at Winwick Junction, near Warrington on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, on 28 September 1934. Two trains collided, resulting in 11 deaths and 19 injured.
The Ais Gill rail accident occurred on the Settle–Carlisle line in Northwest England on 2 September 1913. Two long trains were both ascending a steep gradient with some difficulty, because their engines generated barely enough power to carry the load. When the first train stopped to build up steam pressure, the driver and fireman of the second train were distracted by maintenance routines, and failed to observe the warning signals. The collision wrecked several carriages, which were then engulfed by flammable gas, killing 16 people and injuring 38.
Two rail accidents have occurred near Castlecary, Scotland. One of these was in 1937 and one in 1968. Both events involved rear-end collisions, and caused the deaths of 35 and 2 people respectively.
The Radstock rail accident took place on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway in south west England, on 7 August 1876. Two trains collided on a single track section, resulting in fifteen passengers being killed.
The Darlington rail accident occurred on the evening of 27 June 1928 when a parcels train and an excursion train collided head on at Darlington Bank Top railway station in County Durham, England. The accident was caused by the parcels train driver passing a signal at danger, due to misunderstanding the signalling layout in an unfamiliar part of the station. This accident resulted in the deaths of 25 people and the serious injury of 45 people.
There was a rail crash near Welwyn Garden City railway station in Hertfordshire, England, in 1935 which killed fourteen people, and another in 1957 with one fatality.
The Abbots Ripton rail disaster occurred on 21 January 1876 at Abbots Ripton, then in the county of Huntingdonshire, England, on the Great Northern Railway main line, previously thought to be exemplary for railway safety. In the accident, the Special Scotch Express train from Edinburgh to London was involved in a collision, during a blizzard, with a coal train. An express travelling in the other direction then ran into the wreckage. The initial accident was caused by:
Abermule railway station served the village of Abermule in Wales. Served by the Oswestry and Newtown railway, it was situated on the English border. Until 1956 it was the junction for the short branch to Kerry, which had a passenger service until 1931 but was largely built for the local timber traffic.
Tyer's Electric Train Tablet system is a form of railway signalling for single line railways used in several countries; it was first devised in Great Britain by engineer Edward Tyer after the Thorpe rail accident of 1874, which left 21 people dead. It was used in New Zealand for close to 100 years until June 1994. The system used a hard disk called a tablet, a form of token.
The Knowle and Dorridge rail crash was a fatal rail crash that occurred at Dorridge railway station in Warwickshire, England, on 15 August 1963. Three people died in the crash after a signalman's error routed a small freight train into the path of an express passenger train which slowed but could not stop before colliding with it.
The Oswestry and Newtown Railway was a British railway company that built a line between Oswestry in Shropshire and Newtown Montgomeryshire, now Powys. The line opened in stages in 1860 and 1861. It was conceived to open up the area to rail transport, when local opinion formed the view that the trunk railway companies would not do so. Subscription money for the construction proved very difficult to generate. It was the action of a contractor partnership, Davies and Savin, in agreeing to accept shares as the majority of their payment for construction work, that saved the company from failure.
Montgomery railway station served the town of Montgomery, Powys, Wales between 1861 and 1965.
The Welwyn Tunnel rail crash took place in Welwyn North Tunnel, north of Welwyn station on the Great Northern Railway, on 9 June 1866. According to L T C Rolt, "from the point of view of damage to engines and rolling stock it was one of the most destructive in railway history."
Lord Herbert Lionel Henry Vane-Tempest was a British company director. He was a director of the Cambrian Railways and died in the Abermule train collision in January 1921.
On the evening of 26 December 1962, cold weather and snow in and around Crewe had caused points to become frozen and trains were being detained at signals. About midway between Winsford and Crewe, the 13:30 Glasgow Central to London Euston Mid-Day Scot, hauled by an English Electric type 4 diesel, D215, with 13 coaches and 500 passengers, was stopped at a signal but the driver found the telephone to Coppenhall Junction, the next signal box ahead, out of order. Seeing the next signal ahead he decided to proceed down towards it and use the telephone there, but too fast. In the darkness he failed to notice the 16:45 express from Liverpool Lime Street to Birmingham New Street, hauled by an electric locomotive with eight coaches with 300 passengers, standing on the line ahead and collided with it at about 20 mph (32 km/h).
‡ indicates railway accidents and incidents resulting in at least 20 fatalities § indicates the deadliest railway accident in British history 1815–18992000–present
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
