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| Radstock rail accident | |
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| Details | |
| Date | 7 August 1876 |
| Location | Foxcote, Somerset |
| Coordinates | 51°18′07″N2°24′36″W / 51.302°N 2.410°W |
| Country | England |
| Line | Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway |
| Cause | Single-line telegraphic working error |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 2 |
| Deaths | 15 |
| List of UK rail accidents by year | |
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.
It was difficult to assign blame to any individual for the crash. The underlying cause was that the Somerset and Dorset Railway was essentially bankrupt at the time of the crash. The infrastructure was inadequate to the demands of the traffic and the staff were inadequately trained for their duties.
The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (S&D) had constructed an extension to Bath in 1874, and this had ruined the company's finances. To rescue the railway, the Midland Railway and London and South Western Railway had bought a 999-year lease on the railway and formed a new management, but had not had time to reform matters.
The extension from Evercreech to Bath was single-track. The dangers of working single track railways had long been recognised, and all sorts of safeguards (in addition to absolute block working) were supposed to be in place. However, on the single-line section between the crossing places at the stations at Radstock and Wellow, the S&D Railway had constructed a signal box at Foxcote. Ostensibly, this was to control a spur to Braysdown Colliery, but it was often used to allow two trains (travelling in the same direction) at once into the Radstock-Wellow section, in defiance of Regulations. (The Board of Trade rules laid down that only one train could occupy a single line section at any one time.) The S&D later claimed that they understood Foxcote to be a "crossing place between sections", which it clearly was not.
The existence of the Foxcote signal box complicated normal telegraphic communications. The Radstock and Wellow signalmen could communicate with each other only through Foxcote. At the same time, the telegraph control office at Glastonbury had no direct link with Foxcote, and could only contact it via Radstock or Wellow.
This awkward arrangement was in the hands of entirely inexperienced staff. On the night of the crash, none of the signalmen or telegraph clerks involved was more than eighteen years old.
On 7 August, the August Bank Holiday, the S&D ran seventeen extra trains to cater for people enjoying the day off work. These trains did not appear in the normal timetables and the superintendent at Glastonbury, Caleb Percy, had to arrange crossings i.e. issue instructions as to which trains were to be delayed to allow the special trains to be passed over the single line sections. He was hampered in this task by poor telegraph communications all day. [1]
Both trains involved in the accident were unscheduled. The "down" (south-bound) train was supposedly an empty stock train returning from Bath, but large numbers of passengers were aboard, returning to Radstock and nearby villages from a regatta in Bath. [1] The "up" (north-bound) train was a relief train from Bournemouth, arranged hastily because the scheduled train was overcrowded. Percy and his staff could get very little information on the location of either train. The replies to their enquiries from the telegraph clerk at Wellow (who was only fifteen, and trying to do the work of the stationmaster who had gone for a drink in Midford) were vague. Those from the clerk at Radstock were apparently deliberately obtuse.
The Radstock telegraph clerk sent on the "up" relief train without receiving any crossing order or ascertaining the location of the "down" train. Shortly before midnight, the driver of the "up" train pulled up at the Foxcote signal box. The signalman there, Alfred Dando, was barely literate and not physically strong enough to work his signal levers, so the signal arm was somewhere between "safe" and "caution". The signal lamp was out (as he was not given enough oil to light it), so Dando was waving a hand lantern. After a few minutes, Dando allowed the train to proceed. The clerk at Wellow had already sent the "down" stock train on, but without using his block instruments to alert Dando. The "down" train driver could not see the Foxcote distant signal, as it too was unlit. He saw the home signal against him, and also saw the other train, too late to avoid a collision. [1]
Subsequent enquiries were confused by inadequate or conflicting testimony. Although the clerk at Wellow, Arthur Hillard, might normally have been expected to be blamed, it was obviously unjust to place the entire responsibility on a fifteen-year-old youth who was doing the job of several senior staff, in an environment of such corporate misconduct. Greater blame was attached to Stationmaster Sleep, but was shared with senior management, including the Superintendent of the Line, Mr. Difford, for specific actions and also "for the general want of uniformity between the regulations and the practice, the laxity of discipline, and the inefficiency and long hours of servants, disclosed during the inquiry." The Board of Trade Inspecting Officer, Captain H.W. Tyler, went so far as to say, having cited seven separate major failings in operational procedures, "Railway traffic worked under such conditions cannot, whatever the system employed, [be] expected to be carried on without serious accidents." [2]
The accident spurred the new management into urgent reforms. The track between Radstock and Wellow was doubled, and the signalling and staff arrangements overhauled. There were to be no further major accidents on the line until it was closed in the 1960s, though there were some notable incidents:
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Radstock is a town and civil parish on the northern slope of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England, about 9 miles (14 km) south-west of Bath and 8 miles (13 km) north-west of Frome. It is within the area of the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset. The Radstock built-up area had a population of 9,419 at the 2011 Census.
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.
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The Somerset Coal Canal was a narrow canal in England, built around 1800. Its route began in basins at Paulton and Timsbury, ran to nearby Camerton, over two aqueducts at Dunkerton, through a tunnel at Combe Hay, then via Midford and Monkton Combe to Limpley Stoke where it joined the Kennet and Avon Canal. This link gave the Somerset coalfield access east toward London. The longest arm was 10.6 miles (17.1 km) long with 23 locks. From Midford an arm also ran via Writhlington to Radstock, with a tunnel at Wellow.
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Wellow is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Bath. The parish, which includes the hamlets of Twinhoe, White Ox Mead, Baggridge and part of Midford has a population of 529. The village itself falls within the southernmost boundary of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is recognised as having special architectural and historic interest, which led to it being designated as a Conservation Area in 1983.
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The Somerset Coalfield in northern Somerset, England is an area where coal was mined from the 15th century until 1973. It is part of a larger coalfield which stretched into southern Gloucestershire. The Somerset coalfield stretched from Cromhall in the north to the Mendip Hills in the south, and from Bath in the east to Nailsea in the west, a total area of about 240 square miles (622 km2). Most of the pits on the coalfield were concentrated in the Cam Brook, Wellow Brook and Nettlebridge Valleys and around Radstock and Farrington Gurney. The pits were grouped geographically, with clusters of pits close together working the same coal seams often under the same ownership. Many pits shared the trackways and tramways which connected them to the Somerset Coal Canal or railways for distribution.
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The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) was an early railway company in south-western England. It obtained Parliamentary powers in 1845 to build a railway from near Chippenham in Wiltshire, southward to Salisbury and Weymouth in Dorset. It opened the first part of the network but found it impossible to raise further money and sold its line to the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1850.
The Bristol and North Somerset Railway was a railway line in the West of England that connected Bristol with Radstock, through Pensford and further into northern Somerset, to allow access to the Somerset Coalfield. The line ran almost due south from Bristol and was 16 miles (26 km) long.
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Radstock North railway station was a station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway in the county of Somerset in England.
