Remembering three crewmen who died in Western Queen crash of 1963
THE Western Locomotive Association has commemorated three men who lost their lives in the Knowle & Dorridge rail crash of August 15, 1963.
They died after a signalman’s error routed a freight train carrying out a routine shunting manoeuvre into the path of an express passenger service which slowed but could not avoid the collision.
Normally comprising a ninecoach Blue Pullman DMU, that train has been taken out of service and replaced by an 11-months-old Class 52 diesel hydraulic, D1040 Western Queen.
The express was travelling at 80mph approaching the station (now named simply Dorridge) on the Birmingham Snow Hill to Leamington Spa line in Solihull when the driver saw its distant signal at caution. He applied the brakes but could slow down only to 20mph before colliding with the loaded flat car of stationary freight train. The locomotive cab was crushed.
While the driver, fireman, shunter and guard on the freight train jumped clear, the Western’s cab was crushed and drivers Thomas ‘Ernie’ Morris and Sydney Bench and second man David Corkery, who was covering for the rostered man who had gone off sick, died. Thomas Morris was one of the first drivers to be certified on the Blue Pullman sets, and featured in the 1962 British Transport Film Let’s Go To Birmingham. D1040 spent six months at Swindon Works where its damaged A-end cab was rebuilt before being released back to traffic. Its last day in traffic was February 26, 1976, being withdrawn from service the following day, and cut up by August 11 that year.
To celebrate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the association temporarily renamed D1062 Western Courier as D1040 Western Queen for the 2022 operating season on the Severn Valley Railway. To honour the three men, on Sunday, August 14, the locomotive operated all day carrying a commemorative wreath.