Thorpe rail accident | |
---|---|
Details | |
Date | 10 September 1874 21:45 |
Location | Thorpe St Andrew, Norfolk |
Country | England |
Line | Norfolk Railway |
Cause | Single-line telegraphic working error |
Statistics | |
Trains | 2 |
Deaths | 25 |
Injured | 75 |
List of UK rail accidents by year |
The Thorpe rail accident occurred on 10 September 1874 when two trains were involved in a head-on collision near Thorpe St Andrew, Norfolk, England. [1] [2]
The accident occurred on what was then a single-track rail line between Norwich Thorpe and Brundall. The two trains involved were the 20:40 mail from Yarmouth Vauxhall and the 17:00 express from London to Yarmouth. The latter had left Norwich Thorpe at 21:30 and would normally have had a clear run on its way to Yarmouth, since the mail train should have been held on a loop line at Brundall to allow the express to pass. On this occasion trains were running late.
In such circumstances, when the timetable could not be kept, drivers had to have written authority to proceed further. Due to a series of errors (primarily, the telegraph clerk sending the authorisation message before it had been signed by the appropriate official), both drivers received their authority, and anxious to make up for lost time, set off at speed along the single track. The accident, when it occurred around 21:45, resulted in both locomotives rearing into the air, and carriages reduced to wreckage.
Both drivers and firemen were killed, as were seventeen passengers, with four later dying from their injuries. [3] Seventy-three passengers and two railway guards were seriously injured.
Prompted by the accident, engineer Edward Tyer developed the tablet system in which a token is given to the train driver; this must be slotted into an electric interlocking device at the other end of the single-track section before another train is allowed to pass. [3]
The Canoe River train crash in Canada in 1950 also involved two trains, controlled by telegraphed orders, authorized to enter the same single-track section in opposite directions.
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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 Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 coaches.
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The Breckland line is a secondary railway line in the east of England that links Cambridge in the west to Norwich in the east. The line runs through three counties: Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. It takes its name from the Breckland region of Norfolk and passes through Thetford Forest.
The Abermule train collision was a head-on collision which occurred at Abermule, Montgomeryshire, Wales, on Wednesday, 26 January 1921, killing 17 people. 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.
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The East Norfolk Railway was a pre-grouping railway company operating a standard gauge 25 mile, mostly single track, railway running between Norwich Thorpe railway station and Cromer in the English county of Norfolk. It opened in 1874, reaching Cromer three years later, and remains mostly operational. The company also operated a branch between Wroxham and County School, which closed to passengers in 1952, and had proposed a branch to Blakeney in 1878, which was never constructed.
The Wymondham to Wells Branch was a railway built in stages by the Norfolk Railway, Eastern Counties Railway and Wells and Fakenham Company between 1847 and 1857. The railway ran from Wymondham in the south, through Dereham and Fakenham to the coastal town of Wells-next-the-Sea; more specifically, the line ran from Wymondham South Junction, where it met the present-day Breckland Line. Passenger services along the line lasted until 1969; the railway continued to be used for freight until 1989. The southern section of the railway now forms the Mid-Norfolk Railway, with part of the northern section serving as the narrow gauge Wells and Walsingham Light Railway.
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