The RCTS: then and now
FOR over 90 years, the Railway Observer has recorded the chronology of the railways of Britain, and to a lesser extent of those abroad, through the eyes of its membership – covering the minutiae of day-to-day running and allocations, through to headlinemaking events.
Unfortunately among these events are the accidents, minor and major, that have occurred from the earliest days of the passenger-carrying railway when on September 15, 1830 Stephenson’s Rocket fatally injured William Huskisson MP on the opening day of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.
Railway accidents more often than not are the result of human error, a driver or fireman missing a signal, a signalman momentarily forgetting where a train is in his section of line, a guard not ensuring sufficient brakes are applied on a loose-coupled freight, or a permanent way fault not detected by a linesman.
The resulting carnage can be catastrophic, as witnessed at Harrow & Wealdstone on the foggy morning of October 8, 1952 when three passenger trains were involved causing 112 fatalities and 340 serious injuries. 36 years later on December 12, 1988 three trains again collided in the cutting outside Clapham Junction station when 35 people lost their lives and another 484 were injured.
Browsing through the 1948 volume of the RO, the reader will come across a description of the derailment of Thompson A2/1 4 No. 60508 Duke of Rothesay when working the 7.50pm Edinburgh to King’s Cross from Grantham on Saturday, July 17.
With a load of 11 coaches, the King’s Cross crew of driver Bill Hoole and fireman Albert Young expected to be able to make up some of the arrears leaving Peterborough some 20 minutes behind schedule, and by Hatfield they had regained 10 minutes.
On the falling gradient towards Wood Green, speed increased to between 60-70mph, the limit at the time being 60mph, but as No. 60508 was not fitted with a speedometer driver Hoole had only his experience to help judge the speed. Halfway through Barnet Tunnel a rattling noise was heard coming from the right-hand side of the engine, the trailing axle of the bogie had derailed to the right on a rail joint that had been left three-quarters of an inch high after permanent way work the previous Sunday.
Then 300 yards from the tunnel there was a facing crossing on which the whole bogie derailed and the dislodged rail caught the fireman, throwing him off the footplate. The coupling between the tender and first coach parted and the engine and tender turned over and slid along the up main line until it came to rest.
The RO today carries frequent sightings of the various track recording trains, which have the underlying purpose of finding any track faults before they lead to a disaster. However, even these cannot detect the likes of the landslip at Carmont where once again a chain of events led to disaster. The driver would have expected the line to be clear having recently passed the problem area, and following the derailment caused by the landslip, the train may well have come to rest without serious injuries if it had not hit a bridge parapet.
For information on the society, visit www.rcts.org.uk.