Am I just too old? 60103 and Quintinshill

[thesignalman]

That one would have looked a lot better if I had rubbed out my pencil marks before scanning it!

Thanks for the kind words, though.

John

[Mickey]

Thanks for the kind words, though.

Credit where credits due John all your track diagrams are excellent.

Another one of your diagrams that impressed me recently was the one of Hatfield No.2 (primarlily a one direction box for the most part) I didn't realise Hatfield No.2 in a earlier form had such a fairly complicated track layout & set up with the slotted working with Hatfield No.3 of course I remember Hatfield No.2 and it's track layout (after rationalisation) better from the start of 1970 until mid 1973 when the lever frame was taken out and the box received a small NX panel although I do vaguely remember Hatfield No.3 being there circa 1967-69 before it was closed in late 1969 and it's former Down lines signalling was transferred into Hatfield No.2 for a few years.

Mickey

[thesignalman]

Yes, Hatfield was quite a place once but I never saw No3 box other than a blueprint of the diagram which was pinned on the wall of the woodworking room at our school. I assume the woodwork master had no idea what it all meant and thought he would blind us with science so we felt ignorant too. In my years at that school I cooked up all sorts of ideas to liberate it to a good home but they all failed!

John

[Mickey]

Yes, Hatfield was quite a place once but I never saw No3 box other than a blueprint of the diagram which was pinned on the wall of the woodworking room at our school. I assume the woodwork master had no idea what it all meant and thought he would blind us with science so we felt ignorant too. In my years at that school I cooked up all sorts of ideas to liberate it to a good home but they all failed!

Theres a very good picture of Hatfield No.3 (box) amongst a collection of photographs taken around Hatfield and along the Hatfield-st Albans branch.

Back to Quintinshill in 1915...

At the end of the day leaving aside most of the evidence of what happened before and after the accident I can say more or less what actually happened inside Quintinshill box on the morning of May 22nd 1915 from reading about it on and off for almost 50 years.

James Tinsley had arrived at Quintinshill signal box at around 6:35am that morning after riding down on the footplate from Gretna station on the 6:10am local (The train had originally departed from Carlisle at 6:10am). When the 6:10am local arrived outside Quintinshill box it was was crossed over from the Down line to the Up line and as it came to a stand Tinsley climbed down off the footplate and was followed closely by fireman Hutchinson who was going to the box to carry out rule 55. Both men climbed the outside box staircase and entered the box, apart from his mate George Meakin the night turn signalman who Tinsley was expecting to be there the box already had a small party of other railwaymen in the shape of both guards and footplate crews off the two goods trains that were already occuping both the in the Up & Down loops. Tinsley immediately applied himself to 'writing up the train register book' after arriving later than the rostered change over time by a mutal agreement he had with George Meakin and now that Tinsley had arrived in the box Meakin may have fallen into a relaxing 'off duty' frame of mind and sat himself down in the armchair and started to muse over the morning war news from the newspaper that Tinsley had brought with him down from Gretna. Meanwhile fireman Hutchinson carried out rule 55 and signed the train register book but crucially didn't observe Tinsley puts a 'lever collar' over the Up line home signal and he left the box. Tinsley then busied himself with writing up the late entries in the train rigister book off a piece of scrap paper that Meakin had written the times down on of all the times the block bells were sent and received to and from the boxes either side of Quintinshill since 6:00am. Also Tinsley may possibly have worked the block instruments & block bells 'by rote' without thinking to much about what he was actually doing and it was more than likely that he was possibly distracted as well by hearing the other railwaymens conversations going on in the box as well when suddenly there was...

A almighty noise of a crash happening right outside the box!!!.

The almighty noise of a crash outside the box turned out to be a Up troop train special smashing 'head on' into the stationary 6:10am local passenger train that was standing on the 'wrong road' after being crossed over onto the Up road right outside the box windows to clear the Down road for the Euston-Glasgow overnight sleeper express.

Meakin "Wot have you done Jimmy??".
Tinsley "Wheres the parly??".
Meakin 'throws the Down distant signal back to the 'on' position but it's to late!!.

A second collision follows shortly after the first collision as the Down Euston-Glasgow overnight sleeper express 'pitches into' the mountain of wreckage already outside Quintinshill signal box of wot was left of the shunted local passenger train and the troop train special and the name Quintinshill goes down into railway legend as britains worse railway accident of all time.

http://www.railscot.co.uk/location.php?loc=Quintinshill

Mickey