55 years ago tonight

[brsince78]

I do wonder and this is not meant to be an inflammatory comment about the Bulleid Pacific design, but was the driver's view obscured by steam beating down. I have noticed in various videos of West Country Pacific "Tangmere" in action on the mainline that the combination of the air smooth casing and the Lemaitre blast arrangement does not appear to clear smoke and steam very efficiently. I think it may also have been a factor at Wootton Bassett.

[Mickey]

From what i've read and heard on dvds regarding the Bulleid Pacifics especially in there original form with there 'air smooth casing' was that the view of the road ahead for the driver wasn't that great and even in there rebuilt form they apparently weren't that much better either?.

Also on the evening of the Lewisham accident there was widespread fog across south London and it was particularly thick between New Cross & Lewisham st.Johns (the railway is in a cutting along that stretch of railway) also after driver Trew had seen a green (colour) light at the country end of New Cross station the next 2 consecutive colour light signals ahead of no.34066 Spitfire and it's train were 2 colour light signals showing YY & Y respectively but those 2 colour signals were both situated on the right-hand side (the firemans side) and so the first warning that driver Trew got of the danger ahead (after missing the red protecting the standing electric train) was when Trews fireman looked up from firing and seeing the red tail lamp of the standing electric train ahead shouted across to Trew that theres a red light ahead!!.

Mickey

[kudu]

..the leading loco at the head of the double-headed Down Euston-Liverpool Manchester express that ploughed into the wreckage of the first collision between the Up stopping passenger train standing in the Up fast line platform at Harrow and the following Up express that piled into the rear of it was none other than no.46202 Pincess Anne Turbomotive a 'one off' 4-6-2 experimental locomotive. After the collision she was moved to Crewe works but was later deemed to be damaged beyond economical repair and scrapped.

Just for the record, 46202 had been rebuilt into a conventional 4-cylinder Pacific just 2 months earlier. I have heard there was some controversy as to whether it needed to be scrapped, and its withdrawal made the case for a replacement, the Duke of Gloucester.

I hope all this doesn't cause a diversion from the original subject of this thread. If there's anything more to add, perhaps it should be its own thread.

Kudu

[sandwhich]

Mickey asked in an earlier contribution as to what happened to the crew of Spitfire after the crash. The Fireman C D Hoare was reported as being seriously injured, nothing more seems to be known as to what happened to him afterwards, he may have decided to leave the railway and move on or could have obtained another job off the footplate and got on with it quietly.

[Mickey]

Mickey asked in an earlier contribution as to what happened to the crew of Spitfire after the crash. The Fireman C D Hoare was reported as being seriously injured, nothing more seems to be known as to what happened to him afterwards, he may have decided to leave the railway and move on or could have obtained another job off the footplate and got on with it quietly.

Thanks sandwhich i've always been interested to know what happened to all these railwaymen years after who were involved in these accidents but usually and probably rightly so you never usually findout.

I believe what made the Lewisham accident even worse was that the stationary electric train was standing with it's brakes 'on' when no.34066 Spitfire ploughed into the rear of it at around 30mph bringing down part of the railway overbridge down on top of a couple of coaches of the wrecked electric train.

In actual fact this topic has reawakened an old interest I originally developed in 'southern region steam' back in the mid-1990s and currently i'm collecting a few southern steam dvds and fortunately steam on the southern region lasting as long as it did until July 1967 on the 'old south western' main line was well documented in amateur film footage. Today (27/08/16) I bought a couple more southern steam dvds and one in particular is of Battle of Britain no.34051 Winston Churchill which was the loco used to haul sir Winston Churchill's funeral train from Waterloo station on the 30th January 1965, the dvd features a long interview with Jim Lester the fireman on no.34051 on the day of the fineral, it's all very interesting hearing Jim recollecting his memories of the day and also of starting on B.R. in 1957 as a shed cleaner and a bit later as a fireman on the southern region during the late 1950s & early 1960s.

Mickey

[Onward]

For those who are not aware Driver Trew had to stand trial for manslaughter at the Old Bailey. The jury couldn't reach a verdict and he was sent for re-trial. By this time his health had, quite understandably, deteriorated and after a public petition on his behalf, the charges were dropped.

A quite appalling chain of events.

I’m very late to the party on this one... especially being a fan of the Railways south of the Thames.
I had been looking into this as am building a model of Ewer Street sub depot (near Holborn Viaduct, and 34066 Spitfire was a regular visitor for coal and water on turns out of Cannon Street.
At the time of the Lewisham Disaster, I was only four, but clearly remember sitting on the stairs in the dark at home listening to my mother crying because she’d heard of the crash on the radio (we did not have a TV then, or a telephone).
She was crying because she thought my father may have been one of the casualties. He worked in the Continental Ticket Office at Liverpool Street (she used to work at Kings Cross Goods as a wagon tracer), and would go home to Kent from London Bridge on an EMU. It turns out that he was on the train behind Spitfire’s, and was held up for a very long time.
Oddly, in the 70’s, I worked for the Met. Police as prosecution staff at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey). I was in court one day and had a railway book to hand. My barrister noticed this and advised me he had been counsel for Driver Trew in the original Old Bailey trial. He told me Trew was one of the most unfortunate men he had ever had to represent, and should never have been prosecuted. His personal view was that Trew had suffered a minor stroke: if anyone should have stood trial it was BR management.

[rockinjohn]

Hi yes remember that crash in very bad fog, signals not being able to be seen by the driver only the fireman,if I remember, &the sight of the crash a nightmare for rescue &P.W crews.

[Mickey]

Departing Canon street station over an hour late in thick fog with a fully loaded train of evening commuters hauled by a Bulleid un-rebuilt light pacific of the Battle of Britain class no.34066 Spitfire which was already 'low on water' in the tender after a long detour of south London with the inward bound ECS from New Cross carriage sidings due to the dense fog which delayed it's arrival into Canon street that was covering much of south London that afternoon and evening so it couldn't have been easy to driver a steam loco in those conditions especially with the loco being a 'spam can' as well. The 'low water' issue was solved by an additional stop at Sevenoaks some 21 miles from Canon street during it's journey to Ramsgate that evening.

The loco no.34066 Spitfire was attached to the rear of it's train and ran in the reverse direction from New Cross carriage sidings up to Canon street with another Bricklayers Arms loco hauling the train of ECS in the right direction up to Canon street (top & tailed).

I have some archive film footage of no.34066 Spitfire heading the Down Golden Arrow through Tonbridge circa 1959-1960 shortly before the steam hauled Golden Arrow service was withdrawn in 1961 and was replaced by an EMU service on the completion of the Kent electrification project.

[sandwhich]

Thats an interesting thread from Onward as regards Driver Trew may have suffered a minor stroke. It was stated that when the cab of Spitfire was reached he was found with his hand on the brake in the full on position and they had to remove him from the cab with some difficulty because he was frozen to the spot no doubt suffering from shock which may have set off a possible minor stroke. I guess we will never know. There can be no doubt that British Railways and the Transport department were somewhat embarrassed by the Inspectors report stating that the crash would probably not have happened if AWS was fitted on this route, so get the Driver to trial before too many questions were asked, but by then there were, that's probably why the first jury could not agree and much public sympathy was aroused by the time of the second trial just a short time after where because of his physical and mental condition the prosecution agreed not to offer any evidence. After which the fitting of AWS was pushed through much quicker than would have been anticipated. Wait for something to happen then do something! He died in May 1959 a broken man.

[Mickey]

An interesting post sandwhich.

Regarding the issue of AWS?.

On the North London line back in the 1980s there was a Operations manager who had been around the Euston-Willesden-Harrow-Watford area possibly since the end of WW2 anyway one day the Harrow 1952 railway accident came up in conversation and he told me that soon after the crash B.R. fitted AWS equipment at Harrow No.1 box colour light distant signals.

From memory without re-reading about the accident I believe the foggy conditions on the approach to Harrow station that morning especially at the distant signals at the time had a bearing on the accident.

[John Palmer]

Lewisham was the first major railway accident of which I became aware at the time it occurred, having then been seven years old. Both Lewisham and, as Mickey says, Harrow were accidents in which fog played a major part, as well as in some accidents on GE lines. In the long run the abandonment of coal as a fuel and the Clean Air Acts may well have spared us more of the same.

I'm not convinced that BR embarrassment at delayed adoption of AWS was a significant factor in the decision to prosecute Bill Trew, as a distasteful predisposition for such prosecutions can be seen in accidents both before and after Lewisham – consider David Anderson's prosecution following Castlecary in 1937 and that of Robert Morgan following Purley in 1989. In David Anderson's case the Lord Advocate quite properly withdrew all charges on the second day of the trial, but Morgan only obtained justice in the Court of Appeal following conviction at first instance.

I think that in this context my thread at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13259&p=132968#p132968 has some relevance. I find it highly significant that following the 1978 accident at Patcham the Inspecting Officer, Major Rose, expressly referred to a suspicion “shared at that time by the Inspectorate, that the standard British Railways AWS was not really suitable for the intensively worked, colour-light signalled sections of the [Southern] Region." That sends me a strong signal that in conditions of intensive traffic working (and that would encompass the Lewisham case) BR's AWS was not fully fit for its purpose.

[Mickey]

Fog has played a part in quite a number of railway accidents from the dim and distant past on railways.

In the old days if you was working a box and the fog started to roll in once your 'fog marker' which may have been a signal or a group of signals or a bridge or building situated maybe 200 yards away from the box was 'lost' to view then you would 'call out your fogsignalmen' who were usually P.Way men all of whom had probably just arrived home from work and were just getting washed up and about to sit down to there supper!.

One evening when I was a 'box lad' at Welwyn Garden City back in 1972 the fog came in thick around 9:00pm during the evening so the signalman said he was calling out his 'fogmen' three of which duly arrived at the box around an hour later to take up there fogging duties. After all three P.Way men had arrived in the box and had all signed the train register book and had all picked up several boxes of detonators each with all three men carrying a bardic lamp each they left the box to commence there fogsignalmen's duties. One fella I recall was sent off to the Down fast line starting signal no.24 towards Welwyn North with another being sent to the Down fast line outter home signal no.22 & Down slow line no.8 outter home signal which were both on the same bracket signal post just north of the tall Twentieth Mile bridge and the third fella I have a feeling was either sent to the Up fast line outter home signal no.34 which was near to the Down fast line starting signal no.24 or he was sent to the Up fast line no.32 & Up slow line no.46 starting signals again both on the same bracket signal post towards Hatfield No.2 again near to the tall Twentieth Mile bridge although I can't recall now exactly which Up line signals the third fella actually went to although I do believe all three fogmen may have stayed out all night long that night?. Also on another occasion when I was on the early turn starting at 6:00am when I arrived at the box the fogsignalmen were already out and had possibly been out all night at there signal posts because I have a vague memory of the signalman remarking on that fact anyway they were all withdrawn around 8:00am that morning when the fog started to lift I vaguely recall?.

Getting back to the Lewisham accident I maybe wrong because I haven't read about this accident for a number years but wasn't at least one maybe two of driver Trew's running signals sited on the right-hand side of the cab of the loco?. I have a vague feeling that the fireman was to stop his firing and keep a look out for one or maybe two signals that were sited on 'his side' but I maybe wrong?. If that was the case that means a 'spam can' with long boiler side sheets being driven through darkness combined with foggy weather on a stretch of railway without AWS with one or two running line colour light signals being sighted on the right-hand side of the running lines add to which it is possible that driver Trew had the locos 'low water' situation on his mind and the stop at Sevenoaks as it has been claimed in a book that I have read on this accident then unfortunately it all adds up to a mounting issue on the footplate.

[sandwhich]

John Palmer does indeed make some very interesting points, but I think the embarrassing part comes in because after the Harrow & Wealdstone crash of 1952 the Inspecting officers report made the same assumption that the accident would probably not have happened if AWS was in place. After Lewisham it was put into place on the Railway system much quicker than after Harrow. As regards the intensive suburban system and AWS it would seem that cab signalling may be the answer as now being fitted to some sections of Thameslink and Crossrail, but that is another story and certainly would not even have been thought about on British Railways in 1957 and for some years afterwards.