The town of Morpeth in Northumberland, England, has what is reputed to be the tightest curve of any main railway line in Britain. The track turns approximately 98° from a northwesterly to an easterly direction immediately west of Morpeth Station on an otherwise fast section of the East Coast Main Line railway. This was a major factor in three serious derailments between 1969 and 1994. The curve has a permanent speed restriction of 50 miles per hour (80 km/h).
The Colwich rail crash occurred on the evening of Friday 19 September 1986 at Colwich Junction, Staffordshire, England. It was significant in that it was a high speed collision between two packed express trains. One driver was killed, but no passengers died because of the great strength of the rolling stock involved, which included examples of Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 coaches.
The BR Standard Class 7, otherwise known as the Britannia Class, is a class of 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive designed under Robert Riddles for use by British Railways for mixed-traffic duties. 55 were constructed between 1951 and 1954. The design employed results from the 1948 locomotive exchanges undertaken in advance of further locomotive classes being constructed. Three batches were constructed at Crewe Works, before the publication of the 1955 Modernisation Plan.
The Norton Fitzwarren rail crash occurred on 4 November 1940 between Taunton and Norton Fitzwarren in the English county of Somerset, when the driver of a train misunderstood the signalling and track layout, causing him to drive the train through a set of points and off the rails at approximately 40 miles per hour (64 km/h). 27 people were killed. The locomotive involved was GWR King Class GWR 6028 King Class King George VI which was subsequently repaired and returned to service. A previous significant accident occurred here on 10 November 1890 and the Taunton train fire of 1978 was also within 2 metres.
The Sutton Coldfield train crash took place at about 16:13 on 23 January 1955 in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, when an express passenger train traveling from York to Bristol, derailed due to excessive speed on a sharp curve.
The Salisbury rail crash occurred in England on 1 July 1906, when a boat train from Plymouth to London failed to negotiate a sharp bend at more than twice the speed limit and crashed into another train, killing 28 people. It is believed that the driver was trying to demonstrate the speed of the service, in competition with a rival railway company.
The Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash was a three-train collision at Harrow and Wealdstone station in Wealdstone, Middlesex during the morning rush hour of 8 October 1952. The crash resulted in 112 deaths and 340 injuries, 88 of these being detained in hospital. It remains the worst peacetime rail crash in British history and the second deadliest overall after the Quintinshill rail disaster of 1915.
The Bourne End rail crash occurred on 30 September 1945 when a sleeper train from Perth to London Euston derailed, killing 43. The cause was driver error, possibly compounded by ambiguous signalling regulations.
The Dagenham East rail crash was a railway accident on the London, Tilbury and Southend line of British Railways which occurred at Dagenham, United Kingdom.
The Ealing rail crash was an accident on the British railway system that occurred on 19 December 1973. The 17:18 express train from London Paddington to Oxford—with approximately 650 passengers on board—was derailed while travelling at around 70 mph (110 km/h) between Ealing Broadway and West Ealing. Ten passengers were killed and 94 were injured, and it was Britain's deadliest train crash of the decade until the Moorgate tube crash which killed 45. The cause of the accident was an unsecured maintenance door that had fallen open whilst the train was travelling, after having struck several lineside objects, it struck a Point machine at Longfield Avenue, derailing the entire train.
The Connington South rail crash occurred on 5 March 1967 on the East Coast Main Line near the village of Conington, Huntingdonshire, England. Five passengers were killed and 18 were injured.
The Thirsk rail crash occurred on 31 July 1967 at Thirsk, Yorkshire, England on the British Rail East Coast Main Line.
The Goswick rail crash occurred on 26 October 1947 near the village of Goswick, Northumberland, England. The Flying Scotsman express from Edinburgh Waverley to London King's Cross failed to slow down for a diversion and derailed. Twenty-eight people were killed, including the talented Scottish biochemist, John Masson Gulland. It was the last major accident to occur on British railways before their nationalisation on 1 January 1948.
The Jokela rail accident occurred on 21 April 1996, at 07:08 local time in Tuusula, Finland, approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) north of Helsinki. Four people were killed and 75 were injured when express train P82 from Oulu, bound for Helsinki, derailed in heavy fog. The overnight sleeper train was carrying 139 passengers and five crew members. The official investigation into the accident revealed that it was caused by overspeeding through a slow-speed turnout.
On 6 February 2000, a train at the Brühl railway station on the West Rhine Railway negotiated a low-speed turnout at three times the correct speed and derailed, killing 9 people.
The Knowle and Dorridge rail crash was a fatal rail crash that occurred at Dorridge railway station in the West Midlands, 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.
Witham railway station was the scene of a serious accident on Friday, 1 September 1905.
