February 28, 1975

ACROWDED rush-hour Tube train raced into Moorgate station. Commuters on the platform watched in horror as it failed to slow down and sped into the overrun tunnel at nearly 40mph. It hit a 15-yard sand drag and smashed through a hydraulic buffer before ploughing into the 5ft thick concrete end wall.

The front of the train concertinaed up into the roof and the first, second and half of the third carriage were crushed into half their original length. The station was plunged into complete darkness.

Some 300 passengers had been onboard and it took emergency services 13 hours to cut the wounded free. One fireighter described a “human jigsaw puzzle of casualties”. Fortythree people were dead and 74 injured, and it remains the deadliest incident to have occurred on the London Underground network. Driver