 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2022) |
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.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2022) |
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.
| 1935 Welwyn Garden City rail crash | |
|---|---|
| Details | |
| Date | 15 June 1935 23:27 |
| Location | Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire |
| Country | England |
| Line | East Coast Main Line |
| Operator | London and North Eastern Railway |
| Cause | Signalling error |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 2 |
| Passengers | 337 |
| Deaths | 14 |
| Injured | 29 |
| List of UK rail accidents by year | |
On 15 June 1935, a train from London King's Cross to Leeds collided with the rear of a train from Kings Cross to Newcastle at night. Fourteen people were killed and 29 injured.
The accident was a caused by a signalman's error: the signalman at Welwyn Garden City, who had been fairly recently appointed to the box, became confused and accepted a second train into a block section that was already occupied. The Newcastle train, arriving first, received a signal check and was slowed to 15‒20 mph; the Leeds train, consisting of 11 coaches hauled by Class K3 2-6-0 No 4009, ran into it at approximately 65 mph.
There were several significant features. [1] Firstly, the modern rolling stock with buckeye couplings withstood the violent collision well, apart from the last coach which was totally destroyed; older coaches would have been crushed, with much heavier loss of life. Secondly, the Inspecting Officer felt that the signalman had been promoted beyond his level of competence for such a busy box, and that the assessment and training procedures for signalmen should be improved. Different commentators have disagreed on this; Rolt [2] [ page needed ] and Hamilton [3] [ page needed ] supported the Inspector, Vaughan [4] [ page needed ] felt the signalman had had insufficient time to become fully experienced in working the box. Thirdly, the Inspector recommended that the block instruments should be linked to the track circuits to prevent future occurrences in such a way that a "Line clear" indication could only be given on the block instrument if the track circuits had registered passage of a train; this was widely adopted and known as Welwyn Control.
| 1957 Welwyn Garden City rail crash | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Details | |
| Date | 7 January 1957 |
| Location | Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire |
| Country | England |
| Line | East Coast Main Line |
| Cause | Signals passed at danger |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 2 |
| Deaths | 1 |
| Injured | 25 |
| List of UK rail accidents by year | |
There was another rear-end collision, about half a mile south of Welwyn Garden City station, at dawn on 7 January 1957, with a different cause. The accident was due to the driver of an Aberdeen to London express passing signals at danger with visibility reduced due to mist, and not hearing the explosion of emergency detonators as his locomotive ran over them. [5]
The express was travelling at around 60‒65 mph when it collided with the rear of a local train, which had just pulled away from the station and was travelling at around 30‒35 mph. The rear coach of the local train was wrecked in the collision and two more were overturned. One passenger in the local train was killed and 25 injured. The locomotive of the express overturned, and the driver suffered severe shock.
The Hawes Junction rail crash occurred at 5.49 am on 24 December 1910, just north of the Lunds viaduct between Hawes Junction and Aisgill on the Midland Railway's Settle and Carlisle main line in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was caused when a busy signalman, Alfred Sutton, forgot about a pair of light engines waiting at his down (northbound) starting signal to return to their shed at Carlisle. They were still waiting there when the signalman set the road for the down Scotch express. When the signal cleared, the light engines set off in front of the express into the same block section. Since the light engines were travelling at low speed from a stand at Hawes Junction, and the following express was travelling at high speed, a collision was inevitable. The express caught the light engines just after Moorcock Tunnel near Aisgill summit in Mallerstang and was almost wholly derailed.
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 Clayton Tunnel rail crash occurred on Sunday 25 August 1861, five miles (8 km) from Brighton on the south coast of England. At the time it was the worst accident on the British railway system. A train ran into the back of another inside the tunnel, killing 23 and injuring 176 passengers.
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 Bellgrove rail accident occurred on 6 March 1989 when two passenger trains collided near Bellgrove station, Glasgow, United Kingdom. Two people were killed and 53 were injured. The cause was driver error, with a signal being passed at danger. The layout of a junction was a contributory factor.
The South Croydon rail crash on the British railway system occurred on 24 October 1947.
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:
The Seer Green rail crash occurred on the morning of 11 December 1981 near Seer Green, Buckinghamshire, England between two four-car Class 115 diesel multiple units, killing one driver and three passengers.
The Sevenoaks railway accident occurred on 24 August 1927 between Dunton Green railway station and Sevenoaks railway station. The Southern Railway's afternoon express from Cannon Street to Deal left London at 5 pm, hauled by River Class tank engine No 800 River Cray. Several passengers later recounted that from time to time the train seemed to roll excessively on fast curves. As it passed through Pollhill Tunnel at 60 mph the rocking became violent and the train derailed past Dunton Green railway station, where the line is in a cutting which is spanned by a bridge carrying Shoreham Lane. The cab of the locomotive struck the bridge and the engine was turned on its side across the cutting. The leading coaches piled up against it, killing 13 and injuring many more. Railway engineer Brigadier-General Archibald Jack was a survivor of the crash.
Great Western Railway accidents include several notable incidents that influenced rail safety in the United Kingdom.
The accident at St Bedes Junction was one of several serious accidents in 1915. It featured a double collision and fire fuelled by gas, characteristics shared by a much worse accident that year at Quintinshill. There were also similarities in that a signalman was unaware of the presence of a train near his signal box and rules were not observed. The accident is sometimes referred to as the Jarrow railway disaster as there was no station at Bede and Jarrow was then the nearest place of importance.
The Kirtlebridge rail crash took place in 1872 at Kirtlebridge railway station in Dumfriesshire. An express passenger train ran into a goods train that was shunting; 11 people lost their lives immediately, and one further person succumbed later. The cause was a failure to communicate between the station master in charge of the shunting operation, and the signalman. There was not full interlocking of the points, and the block system of signalling was not in use.
The Slough rail accident happened on 16 June 1900 at Slough railway station on the Great Western Main Line when an express train from London Paddington to Falmouth Docks ran through two sets of signals at danger, and collided with a local train heading for Windsor & Eton Central. Five passengers were killed; 35 were seriously injured, and 90 complained of shock or minor injuries
The 1944 Ilford rail crash occurred on 16 January 1944 when, in darkness and dense fog, an express passenger train passed a signal at danger and collided with another passenger train that was stopped at Ilford railway station in Essex, England.
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."
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).
Railway accidents in 1935 | |
|---|---|
| Location and date |
|
Railway accidents in 1957 | |
|---|---|
| Location and date |
|
| 1900s |
|
|---|---|
| 1910s |
|
| 1920s |
|
| 1930s |
|
| 1940s |
|
| 1950s |
|
| 1960s |
|
| 1970s |
|
| 1980s |
|
| 1990s |
|
‡ indicates railway accidents and incidents resulting in at least 20 fatalities § indicates the deadliest railway accident in British history 1815–1899   2000–present | |