Thirsk derailment
Fifty years on, GREG MORSE considers the 1967 derailment at Thirsk that claimed the lives of seven passengers, and spurred research into wheel-rail dynamics
Fifty years on - RAIL recalls the fatal rail crash at Thirsk that spurred critical research into wheel-rail dynamics.
It’s the last day of July in 1967, and a freight train is pulling into Skelton en route from Cliffe to Uddingston. It’s a regular turn - a ‘block train’, the sort of train that would have made Beeching proud.
The guard exchanges greetings with the man about to take over. A wagon examiner plies his trade, but the new guard looks at the couplings himself. Towards the rear of the rake he finds a slack one, tightens it up, and prepares for the off. When it comes, he settles so he can keep an eye on things from the brake van’s ducket window. He always does this for cement trains. Cement trains - ‘Cemflo’ wagons, at least - can be trouble.
He’s right - they can be trouble. Shortly after 1515, trouble comes as one ‘Cemflo’ starts to sway, its movement increasing until its wheels leave the rails near Thirsk. To the guard, it looks like a bulge, but it quickly becomes much more as a coupling breaks and eight wagons disappear down the embankment. All but one come to rest clear of the adjacent line.
Looming large on that line is the 1200 King’s Cross-Edinburgh, its driver enjoying a clear run after a temporary speed restriction near Tollerton. He could be powering up, and he should be able to see the next signal. But he can’t - something’s in the way. A mist? A haze?
He closes the controller, but as he starts to apply the brake, out of the haze comes the wagon. He throws out all the anchors. He works the sander to aid adhesion. His secondman gets three detonators ready to protect the line if they survive. If…
The wagon tears into the side of the locomotive and six of the carriages. The sound is excruciating, but they’re alive to hear it. Not so seven of the passengers.
In a nearby field, a farm worker saw the freight train, saw its tail swing down the embankment, saw the guard running back, and saw the collision that couldn’t be avoided. He ran too. He ran home to call an ambulance.
Forty-five people would eventually be taken to hospital, 15 of them with serious injuries. One of the survivors told the press that the cement wagon had been “like a can opener”, lacerating the express as it screeched to a stand. The driver of that train - Gateshead’s John Evans - later admitted he’d shut his eyes and hoped for the best at the last moment. “It probably would have been much worse if it had been head-on,” he said.
Soon on the scene was Gerry Fiennes, General Manager of the expanded Eastern Region, which had swallowed up its North Eastern neighbour at the start of the year. The selfless behaviour of Evans and his mate impressed him so much that he lent them his car so they could get home.
Impressive too was the way BR conducted the clear-up operations and dealt with the needs of those inconvenienced by the accident. As one such ( Jean Cunningham) wrote to
The Times, those on her ex-Newcastle service were quickly told that there had been a
derailment, but when they passed the scene some four hours later “there was no gruesome sight to scare the children”.
Better still, although arrival at King’s Cross was around five hours late, the restaurant provided “an impromptu evening meal”, while “an official boarded the train, apologising for the inconvenience of the delay and offering anyone who needed it hotel accommodation”. This was “gratefully accepted by those who felt too tired to continue their journey by car”.
But while Fiennes was praising his men and Cunningham was praising BR, Newcastleupon-Tyne East MP Geoffrey Rhodes was calling for an inquiry (as MPs always do).
He was worried that as speeds increased, risk would too. There had been two other accidents on the East Coast Main Line that year - at Connington on March 5 (five killed, 18 injured) and at Amble Junction on July 15 (nine injured). People were asking if air travel was safer, and Rhodes was asking for a special inquiry to consider the issues facing the route.
BR said speeds had been raised with full regard to safety, and that inquiries were being held. Indeed, they would show the causes of all three to be quite different - Connington had involved the actions of the signaller, while Amble Junction was the result of a track defect. As to Thirsk, Colonel McMullen (Chief Inspecting Officer of Railways) was on the case.
McMullen had joined the Railway Inspectorate in 1948 (the year of nationalisation), and had succeeded Brigadier Langley as chief in 1963. He certainly saw many changes during his long employ, ranging from the coming of modern traction, to the end of steam, the closures of the Beeching era and the birth of branded British Rail. The investigation into Thirsk would be one of his last before retirement in 1968.
Published later that year, McMullen’s report began with a description of the accident and its aftermath, before going on to describe the area, the infrastructure, the signalling and the trains involved.
More room was reserved for his consideration of the ‘Cemflo’ wagons - these were privately owned by Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers Ltd, had started to appear from 1961, and had been blighted by problems with broken springs and underframe cracks, such that their permitted speed had been cut from 60mph to 45mph when laden. Tests had also shown that ‘hunting’ - a strange lateral wheel oscillation - could develop at around 25mph and was exaggerated if couplings were slack. The guard’s unease had been well-founded, it seemed.
Examinations on site found the 12th ‘Cemflo’ in the rake - LA233 - was the first to come off, its trailing wheels carrying “the typical marks that occur from having run in a derailed state for some distance”.
When new, the UIC ‘link type’ suspension used on these wagons had a damping effect on hunting, but this diminished with wear - and the links on LA233 had worn. Examinations also found a slight twist in the track, which while “within specified tolerances” created