Abergele train disaster
Encyclopedia
The Abergele rail disaster, which took place near the town of Abergele
, on the north coast of Wales
in 1868, was, at the time, the worst railway disaster yet in Britain, and also the most alarming. The Railway News said of it
's down day Irish Mail train left the LNWR's London
terminus Euston Station
for Holyhead
. One of the railway's most powerful engines Prince of WalesClearly from contemporary pictures of the crash a 2-2-2 and therefore presumably one of the 'Problem'
class hauled behind it a chief guard's van, a travelling post office
(mail van and tender), a luggage van , four passenger carriages, and a second guards van at the rear of the train. At 11.30 a.m. in Chester
, four more passenger carriages were attached immediately behind the front guards van; the train then set off for Holyhead, its next scheduled stop, via the North Wales Coast Line
(Chester and Holyhead Railway
). At about 12.39 p.m the train passed through Abergele
at about 40 miles per hour ( roughly 65 km/h). A young boy who saw it said he thought 'it was doing 60 miles an hour', which has been quoted to support suggestions of excessive speed , but the accuracy/reliability of that estimate is unknown - in 1868 'a mile a minute' was outside most people's experience - GWR expresses were probably hitting it on the flat. The rail distance between Chester and Abergele -covered in about an hour- is a bit under 35 miles It was about 5 minutes late; by that time, it should have been 5 km further on and passing Llanddulas
.
At Llanddulas, there were two sidings (Llysfaen
sidings),The station was later renamed as Llysfaen and (in 1870) provided with a signal box; In 1931, Llysfaen Railway Station closed, but the signal box was not removed until 1983 as it served sidings used by the ICI lime works. http://www.signalbox.org/gallery/lm/llysfaen.htm
serving a lime quarry to the south of the line. When the goods train reached them (about 12.25 pm), both were partly occupied by goods wagons (‘cargo trucks’) and consequently neither siding could take the entire goods train. Under the direction of the Llanddulas stationmaster, therefore, the brake van and last six wagons of the goods train were uncoupled and left on the main down line (protected by the distant signal for Llanddulas). Rather than simply shunting the rest of the train into one of the sidings and returning for the odd six, a series of 'loose shunting' in which wagons at the rear of the train are uncoupled and pushed by the train until they reach an adequate speed. The train then stops and the loose wagons continue forward with enough momentum to complete the intended move. The wagons are therefore not always fully under control, but correct execution saves time and demonstrates skill operations were embarked upon intended to put empty wagons (there were 26 in the train) into one of the sidings and accumulate a shorter train of loaded wagons on the main line ready to put into the other siding.
The Irish Mail is thought to have been doing 28-30 mph (45–50 km/h) when it hit the wagons, which was probably travelling at 12-15 mph (20–25 km/h) towards it at impact. The force of the collision derailed the engine, its tender and the leading guard's van. The engine ran on about 30 yards and over turned to the left; the tender overturned to the right (and ended up fouling the up line, along which the up Irish Mail was due to pass shortly.Colonel Rich says it should have reached Llanddulas by 12.34 p.m.; clearly, it too was running late
However, the heavy loss of life resulting from the accident was caused by the load of the two runaway wagons next to the brake van; they carried 50 wooden barrels holding about 1700 gallons (8000 litres) of paraffin oil. (This was produced at Saltney outside Chester by refining liquids produced by the dry distillation of cannel coal
from the Flintshire
coalfield, and therefore not quite the same as modern paraffin (kerosene)
produced by refining crude oil, but it was intended for much the same uses (lamp oil etc) and had much the same flammability: the Board of Trade report gives its igniting point as 137 Fahrenheit (58 °C).)
were identified by the crest engraved on his watch. A statue to his memory now stands outside the new Johnston Central Library on Farnham St. in Cavan Town. The victims were buried in a mass grave in St Michael's churchyard in Abergele, with the London & North Western Railway Company paying all funeral expenses.
Albert Thompson survived the collision, but died in October the same year. The post office workers in the travelling post office escaped , with some of the mail, but the leading post office van was destroyed by fire . There were no serious injuries, let alone deaths in the carriages behind it, which were successfully detached and saved from the fire. A first-class passenger The Marquess of Hamilton, son of the Duke of Abercorn the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
. During the inquest
, the coroner received an anonymous letter claiming that the ‘accident’ was in fact a Fenian outrage intended to assassinate the wife and family of the Lord Lieutenant. The inquest did not find any evidence to support this, nor has any emerged since. and/or labourers sent by the surviving guard ran to Llanddulas to warn of the accident and the up ‘Irish Mail’ was successfully held there. The surviving passengers resumed their journey at 6 p.m the same day (as did the up ‘Irish Mail’).
, the two brakesmen of the goods train did not give evidence (on legal advice) : the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter
against them. The jury also strongly censured the station-master at Llanddulas for allowing shunting when the express was expected imminently, contrary to the LNWR’s rules. The brakesmen were tried for manslaughter at Ruthin
assizes
the following spring , but acquitted.
Inspector, Colonel Rich issued his report within a month of the accident. He found that
However , his analysis went beyond that of the inquest jury;This was far from uncommon; in his official report on the Brockley Whins
accident in 1870 another inspector said of the inquest verdict that it supplied
He then criticised the LNWR on a number of points
He then returned to his previous point about what in modern parlance are ‘safety culture’ and ‘compliance’ issues , but he saw as a simple question of discipline
He then gave a number of examples, beginning with one which was undeniably relevant
Before ending
Abergele
Abergele is a community and old Roman trading town, situated on the north coast of Wales between the holiday resorts of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, in Conwy County Borough. Its northern suburb of Pensarn lies on the Irish Sea coast and is known for its beach, where it is claimed by some that a ghost ship...
, on the north coast of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
in 1868, was, at the time, the worst railway disaster yet in Britain, and also the most alarming. The Railway News said of it
No other collision has ever yet, in this country at least, been attended with such a loss of life, nor presented such horrifying features. The crashing of the engine and carriages into a heap of splinters, each of which wounds unfortunate passengers like a sword, is horrible enough to contemplate; but when fire in its fiercest form is added to the scene, no more frightful occurrence could be imagined.
The Irish Mail
On 20 August 1868, at 7.30 a.m., the London and North Western RailwayLondon and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
's down day Irish Mail train left the LNWR's London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
terminus Euston Station
Euston railway station
Euston railway station, also known as London Euston, is a central London railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden. It is the sixth busiest rail terminal in London . It is one of 18 railway stations managed by Network Rail, and is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line...
for Holyhead
Holyhead
Holyhead is the largest town in the county of Anglesey in the North Wales. It is also a major port adjacent to the Irish Sea serving Ireland....
. One of the railway's most powerful engines Prince of WalesClearly from contemporary pictures of the crash a 2-2-2 and therefore presumably one of the 'Problem'
Locomotives of the London and North Western Railway
Locomotives of the London and North Western Railway. The LNWR was headquartered at Crewe.- Locomotives inherited from constituent companies :...
class hauled behind it a chief guard's van, a travelling post office
Travelling Post Office
A Travelling Post Office was a type of mail train in the UK where the post was sorted en-route. The last Travelling Post Office services were ended on 9 January 2004, with the carriages used now sold for scrap or to preservation societies....
(mail van and tender), a luggage van , four passenger carriages, and a second guards van at the rear of the train. At 11.30 a.m. in Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
, four more passenger carriages were attached immediately behind the front guards van; the train then set off for Holyhead, its next scheduled stop, via the North Wales Coast Line
North Wales Coast Line
The North Wales Coast Line is the railway line from Crewe to Holyhead. Virgin Trains consider their services along it to be a spur of the West Coast Main Line. The first section from Crewe to Chester was built by the Chester and Crewe Railway and absorbed by the Grand Junction Railway shortly...
(Chester and Holyhead Railway
Chester and Holyhead Railway
The Chester and Holyhead Railway was incorporated out of a proposal to link Holyhead, the traditional port for the Irish Mail, with London by way of the existing Chester and Crewe Railway, and what is now the West Coast Main Line...
). At about 12.39 p.m the train passed through Abergele
Abergele
Abergele is a community and old Roman trading town, situated on the north coast of Wales between the holiday resorts of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, in Conwy County Borough. Its northern suburb of Pensarn lies on the Irish Sea coast and is known for its beach, where it is claimed by some that a ghost ship...
at about 40 miles per hour ( roughly 65 km/h). A young boy who saw it said he thought 'it was doing 60 miles an hour', which has been quoted to support suggestions of excessive speed , but the accuracy/reliability of that estimate is unknown - in 1868 'a mile a minute' was outside most people's experience - GWR expresses were probably hitting it on the flat. The rail distance between Chester and Abergele -covered in about an hour- is a bit under 35 miles It was about 5 minutes late; by that time, it should have been 5 km further on and passing Llanddulas
Llanddulas
Llanddulas is a village in Conwy county borough, North Wales midway between Old Colwyn and Abergele and next to the North Wales Expressway.The village lies beneath the limestone hill of Cefn-yr-Ogof...
.
The goods train
Ahead of it , a 'pick-up' goods train 43 wagons long had left Abergele at 12.15 p.m on the same line; to clear the down line the line on which traffic goes away from London – in this case from Chester to Holyhead and the more southerly of the lines (UK trains ‘drive on the left’) for the express, the goods train was to be put into sidings at Llanddulas until the express had passed.At Llanddulas, there were two sidings (Llysfaen
Llysfaen
Llysfaen is a village in Conwy County Borough near the coast of north Wales and is located high above the coast. For local government purposes, it is also a community and Conwy County Borough Council ward.-Introduction:...
sidings),The station was later renamed as Llysfaen and (in 1870) provided with a signal box; In 1931, Llysfaen Railway Station closed, but the signal box was not removed until 1983 as it served sidings used by the ICI lime works. http://www.signalbox.org/gallery/lm/llysfaen.htm
serving a lime quarry to the south of the line. When the goods train reached them (about 12.25 pm), both were partly occupied by goods wagons (‘cargo trucks’) and consequently neither siding could take the entire goods train. Under the direction of the Llanddulas stationmaster, therefore, the brake van and last six wagons of the goods train were uncoupled and left on the main down line (protected by the distant signal for Llanddulas). Rather than simply shunting the rest of the train into one of the sidings and returning for the odd six, a series of 'loose shunting' in which wagons at the rear of the train are uncoupled and pushed by the train until they reach an adequate speed. The train then stops and the loose wagons continue forward with enough momentum to complete the intended move. The wagons are therefore not always fully under control, but correct execution saves time and demonstrates skill operations were embarked upon intended to put empty wagons (there were 26 in the train) into one of the sidings and accumulate a shorter train of loaded wagons on the main line ready to put into the other siding.
Runaway wagons
There were two brakesmen on the train; both dismounted to take part in the shunting operations. The wagons were held by the brake van brake only on a 1 in 100 gradient falling towards Abergele. The next set of loaded wagons were 'loose shunted' into the original wagons with such force as to break the brake, and the wagons moved off in the direction of Abergele. The brake van was unoccupied, and nobody managed to catch up with it and get back on board to apply the brake;From evidence in the BoT report, even if they had they wouldn't have been able to slow the wagons since the brake was broken the runaway wagons disappeared out of sight round a curve in the line. The next thought was to take the engine back towards Abergele and retrieve the wagons, but this intention was never acted upon, being overtaken by events.Collision
About 1¾ miles (2.8 km) beyond Abergele, Arthur Thompson, the engine driver of the Irish Mail saw some wagons no more than 200 yards in front (the line runs in a cutting and curves away to the right at this point).not the same curve as that at Llanddulas, but the next one reversing its effect. A later photograph of another member of the same class of engine suggests that on any curve to the right the body of his engine will have hidden the wagons from him He initially thought the wagons were on the up line, "but immediately afterwards perceived that they were running towards him on the down line on which he was travelling". He shut off steam; the fireman, who had also seen the hazard, applied his brake. "Thompson then prepared to jump off and called to his fireman “For God’s sake Joe, jump ; we can do no more”.Strictly speaking, he should also have used the steam whistle to signal to the guards to apply their brakes, but clearly they could not have done so in time Thompson then jumped; his fireman did not.The Irish Mail is thought to have been doing 28-30 mph (45–50 km/h) when it hit the wagons, which was probably travelling at 12-15 mph (20–25 km/h) towards it at impact. The force of the collision derailed the engine, its tender and the leading guard's van. The engine ran on about 30 yards and over turned to the left; the tender overturned to the right (and ended up fouling the up line, along which the up Irish Mail was due to pass shortly.Colonel Rich says it should have reached Llanddulas by 12.34 p.m.; clearly, it too was running late
However, the heavy loss of life resulting from the accident was caused by the load of the two runaway wagons next to the brake van; they carried 50 wooden barrels holding about 1700 gallons (8000 litres) of paraffin oil. (This was produced at Saltney outside Chester by refining liquids produced by the dry distillation of cannel coal
Cannel coal
Cannel coal, also known as candle coal, is a type of coal, also classified as terrestrial type oil shale, with a large amount of hydrogen, which burns easily with a bright light and leaves little ash....
from the Flintshire
Flintshire
Flintshire is a county in north-east Wales. It borders Denbighshire, Wrexham and the English county of Cheshire. It is named after the historic county of Flintshire, which had notably different borders...
coalfield, and therefore not quite the same as modern paraffin (kerosene)
Kerosene
Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...
produced by refining crude oil, but it was intended for much the same uses (lamp oil etc) and had much the same flammability: the Board of Trade report gives its igniting point as 137 Fahrenheit (58 °C).)
Fire and Casualties
Some of the barrels broke up in the collision and their contents caught fire: the engine , tender, guard’s van and three front carriages were instantly enveloped in dense smoke and flames, which soon spread to the fourth carriage and the front of the leading post office van. This prevented any immediate attempt to rescue the occupants of the first four carriages, who all died, together with the guard in the front guard’s van and the locomotive fireman.We were startled by a collision and a shock. [...] I immediately jumped out of the carriage, when a fearful sight met my view. Already the three passenger carriages in front of ours, the vans and the engine were enveloped in dense sheets of flame and smoke, rising fully 20 feet. [...] [I]t was the work of an instant. No words can convey the instantaneous nature of the explosion and conflagration. I had actually got out almost before the shock of the collision was over, and this was the spectacle which already presented itself. Not a sound, not a scream, not a struggle to escape, or a movement of any sort was apparent in the doomed carriages,.A platelayer's wife from a nearby cottage asserted to the contrary, that she had spoken to women in the forward carriages. and urged them to get out and been told to mind her own business. The driver thought that whilst attempting to uncouple the other carriages, he had heard such a conversation but gave a markedly different account of it. Several gentlemen who were passengers by the train and - the Colonel says - appeared much more competent to give a clear account of the events gave accounts similar to the Marquess, and these were preferred by the Colonel. His report suggests that the witness was mistaken as to which carriage she had spoken to the occupants of, which seems a plausible explanation. It also allows him to conclude that a well-connected nobleman was not mistaken, and that the dead cannot have suffered; both desirable findings It was as though an electric flash had at once paralysed and stricken every one of their occupants. So complete was the absence of any presence of living or struggling life in them that [...] it was imagined that the burning carriages were destitute of passengers.Local farm labourers and quarry workers eventually formed a bucket chain to fetch water from the sea 200 yards away to put out the fire in these carriages; when they did the victims were found to be burnt beyond recognition “charred pieces of flesh and bone”. Three of them were later identified by their personal effects.The remains of Lord Farnham,.
Henry Maxwell, 7th Baron Farnham
Henry Maxwell, 7th Baron Farnham KP was an Irish peer and Member of Parliament.Farnham was the son of Henry Maxwell, 6th Baron Farnham, and Lady Anne Butler. He was elected to the House of Commons for County Cavan in 1824, a seat he continued to represent until 1838...
were identified by the crest engraved on his watch. A statue to his memory now stands outside the new Johnston Central Library on Farnham St. in Cavan Town. The victims were buried in a mass grave in St Michael's churchyard in Abergele, with the London & North Western Railway Company paying all funeral expenses.
Albert Thompson survived the collision, but died in October the same year. The post office workers in the travelling post office escaped , with some of the mail, but the leading post office van was destroyed by fire . There were no serious injuries, let alone deaths in the carriages behind it, which were successfully detached and saved from the fire. A first-class passenger The Marquess of Hamilton, son of the Duke of Abercorn the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the British King's representative and head of the Irish executive during the Lordship of Ireland , the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
. During the inquest
Inquest
Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...
, the coroner received an anonymous letter claiming that the ‘accident’ was in fact a Fenian outrage intended to assassinate the wife and family of the Lord Lieutenant. The inquest did not find any evidence to support this, nor has any emerged since. and/or labourers sent by the surviving guard ran to Llanddulas to warn of the accident and the up ‘Irish Mail’ was successfully held there. The surviving passengers resumed their journey at 6 p.m the same day (as did the up ‘Irish Mail’).
Inquest and Prosecutions
At the subsequent inquestInquest
Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...
, the two brakesmen of the goods train did not give evidence (on legal advice) : the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
against them. The jury also strongly censured the station-master at Llanddulas for allowing shunting when the express was expected imminently, contrary to the LNWR’s rules. The brakesmen were tried for manslaughter at Ruthin
Ruthin
Ruthin is a community and the county town of Denbighshire in north Wales. Located around a hill in the southern part of the Vale of Clwyd - the older part of the town, the castle and Saint Peter's Square are located on top of the hill, while many newer parts of the town are on the floodplain of...
assizes
Assizes
Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to::;in common law countries :::*assizes , an obsolete judicial inquest...
the following spring , but acquitted.
Railway Inspector’s Report
The Board of TradeBoard of Trade
The Board of Trade is a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, originating as a committee of inquiry in the 17th century and evolving gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions...
Inspector, Colonel Rich issued his report within a month of the accident. He found that
- The immediate cause of the accident was the failure of the senior brakesman to apply the individual wagon brakes on the 6 detached wagons
- The brake van brake had been broken by loose shunting of loaded wagons into the six wagons at too high a speed; the secondary cause was the failure of the senior brakesman to moderate their speed by applying wagon brakes.
- The station master at Llanddulas was very culpable in not having directed the goods train into the sidings as soon as it arrived at Llanddulas.
However , his analysis went beyond that of the inquest jury;This was far from uncommon; in his official report on the Brockley Whins
Brockley Whins
Brockley Whins is an area of South Shields, in South Tyneside, England.It is served by Brockley Whins Metro station....
accident in 1870 another inspector said of the inquest verdict that it supplied
further confirmation, if any were needed, of the fact that coroner's inquests, as generally conducted, are singularly ill calculated to ascertain the real causes of railway accidents; but they are supposed to be sometimes serviceable... to the railway companies, in concealing the mismanagement of the Company from the publicRolt op cit page 62 he considered that these failings did not excuse the LNWR , and to some extent were its responsibility.
So far, the three men are seriously to blame, and their neglect has been the immediate cause of the accident, but men of that class cannot be expected to do their duties well if the railway companies do not give them the most convenient and best appliances, and do not look after them strictly and enforce their own regulations
He then criticised the LNWR on a number of points
- the section of line was being run on the interval system Essentially if a train has left a station , it is given (say) 10 minutes' start before another train of similar speed is allowed to follow it on the same line. There are some obvious flaws in this system, most of which were explored on British railways (see for example Rolt op cit on the subject) in a way which was much to be condemned; the intervals allowed appeared inadequate for a section containing a 1 in 100 gradient, and a need for shunting of goods trains at Llanddulas to let the express past. He recommended The Railway Inspectorate had been set up to inspect the civil engineering works of railways, and had clear powers in regard to this; on other matters - except where subsequently given additional powers by Parliament - they could only recommend, exhort, encourage and publicise. They felt this to be appropriate, as it kept all responsibility for safety clearly with the railway companies that on the section and any others like it the block telegraphBritish absolute block signallingThe principle of the British absolute block system of railway signalling is to ensure the safe operation of a railway by allowing only one train to occupy a defined section of track at a time...
system should be put strictly in forceThe LNWR already had the telegraph and block working on the London - RugbyRugby, WarwickshireRugby is a market town in Warwickshire, England, located on the River Avon. The town has a population of 61,988 making it the second largest town in the county...
main line ,but it was 'permissive'; where a block was not known to have been cleared by the previous train but there was as yet no reason to believe it wouldn't be, the block could be entered at reduced speed: again the flaws in this should be obvious - again, see Rolt - Llanddulas station and Llysfaen sidings had never been inspected by a Government official or been approved by the Board of Trade. They were quite unfit to be used at the same time to support the quarry operations and to accommodate slow trains allowing expresses to pass them. He recommended that an additional siding large enough to accommodate any train being passed should be provided and kept free from quarry traffic
- The LNWR appeared to have a very slack system of supervision, with nobody to look after guards, train them, or monitor their performance
- Dangerous materials were included in normal goods trains with no greater care taken of them than of other cargoes. He recommended that they should be sent by separate trains with additional precautions
- Carriage doors were locked on the offside. He recommended that all doors be left unlocked
He then returned to his previous point about what in modern parlance are ‘safety culture’ and ‘compliance’ issues , but he saw as a simple question of discipline
Lastly, I fear that it is only too true that the rules printed and issued by railway companies to their servants, and which are generally very good, are made principally with the object of being produced when accidents happen from the breach of them, and that the companies systematically allow many of them to be broken daily, without taking the slightest notice of the disobedience
He then gave a number of examples, beginning with one which was undeniably relevant
The breach of the regulation which led to this sad accident (viz. shunting within 10 minutes of the arrival of a passenger train) may be observed constantly at stations.....
Before ending
I must disavow any intention of taking advantage of this sad calamity to be severe on the London and North-Western Railway Company. I believe that their line is one of the best in the country, and that its general management and arrangements are as good, on the whole, as those of any of the other lines. But I desire to take advantage of the attention which this deplorable event will attract to bring before railway companies what I conceive to be the great defect in their systems, and which has led to most of the accidents I have inquired into, viz a want of discipline and the enforcing of obedience to their own rules
Catchpoints
Although this was not one of the recommendations of the Board of Trade report, it became the practice for steep inclines to be fitted with runaway catchpoints so that runaway vehicles would be derailed and stopped before they had a chance to collide with following trains. These catchpoints became widespread, and only diminished in numbers when all rolling stock was fitted with continuous automatic brakes in the 1980s.Petroleum Act 1879
Not until 1879 was any legislation passed to regulate the carriage of flammable liquids by rail.Similar accidents
- Stairfoot rail accidentStairfoot rail accidentThe Stairfoot rail accident was a railway accident that took place at Stairfoot, South Yorkshire, England.On 12 September 1870 in Barnsley top yard a rake of 10 goods wagons was standing on a gradient of 1 in 119. A single between the spokes of a wheel was holding them. When two gas tank wagons...
(1870) (see also BoT accident report) - Chelford rail accidentChelford rail accidentThe Chelford rail accident occurred on 22 December 1894 at Chelford railway station. The stationmaster was supervising shunting operations, during which a high-sided wagon was fly-shunted into a siding in strong winds and rapidly fading light...
(1894) (see also BoT accident report);only vaguely similar but the accident report quotes LNWR rules on shunting brought in as a result of Abergele
Previous similar but minor accidents on North Wales Coast Line
- Penmaenmawr (1854) (BoT accident report)- goods train still shunting when express arrived - express overran 'distant' signal.
- Bangor (1856) (BoT accident report) - defective interval working - passenger train predictably caught up with goods train - block working recommended.
- Penmaenrhos Tunnel (1859) (BoT accident report)- defective interval working- light engine predictably caught up with goods train - block working recommended more strongly: covering letter concludes
My Lords direct me to call the attention of the directors to the concluding recommendation of the inspecting officer as to the desirableness of working the line by means of the electric telegraph.