LNER 1935 Welwyn crash

[Mickey]

Welwyn Garden City

At Welwyn Garden City In the Down slow line just off the Down slow line platform ramp until September 1973 there was a LNER searchlight type colour light signal (a single aspect) just outside Welwyn Garden City s/box with a right-hand' route indicator (x5 white lights at 45 degrees angle) above the signal head that was worked off no.10 lever in the box. With the route set straight along the Down slow line to Down goods line towards Digswell button A was pressed on the block shelf above no.10 lever and the short handled lever was then pulled out of the lever frame and with the route set from the Down slow (platform) to Down main line as far as no.24 the Welwyn Garden City Down main line starting signal towards Welwyn North (s/box) button B was pressed on the block shelf above no.10 lever and the short handled lever was then pulled out of the lever frame which would illuminate the route indicator. This no.10 searchlight type signal along with a x2 aspect colour light auto-signal standing opposite no.10 signal in the Down fast line were both normally 'blank' and were only illuminated in conjunction with the occupation of the track circuits on the Down lines on the approach to and through Welwyn Garden City station and beyond the s/box for a certain distance towards no.24 the Down main line starting signal towards Welwyn North. Both colour light signals were illuminated when either one or both berth track circuits (on the approach to the tall Twentieth Mile overbridge) showed occupied on the Welwyn Garden City track diagram 200 yards on the approach to the Welwyn Garden City Down fast and Down slow lines outer home signals no.22 and no.8 respectively. Also of note was the x2 aspect colour light signal in the Down fast line outside Welwyn Garden City box standing opposite no.10 signal that also acted as the Welwyn North box Down main line outer colour light distant signal (the inner distant signal being a 'motorised semaphore signal' beneath no.24 the Welwyn Garden City Down main line starting signal) with this auto-signal not being worked off any lever in the box so no trains on the Down fast line could be stopped at this signal and the aspect in the signal head was only illuminated by the occupation of the track circuits in the Down fast and Down slow lines on the approach to and through Welwyn Garden City station and for a certain distance beyond the box in the Down main line towards no.24 the Down main line starting signal towards Welwyn North.

No.10 searchlight type colour light signal outside the box had LNER legible in the iron work on the signal post.

I was a telegraph lad (box lad) at Welwyn Garden City (box) between July 1972-March 1974 when the 'lads position' at the box was abolished.

[Mickey]

Welwyn Garden City s/box was built and opened in 1926 by the LNER and I always thought that it was a nice box and a interesting job to work contrary to what one or two relief signalmen thought of the job back then, anyway while I was at the box as a telegraph lad (box lad) between July 1972 & March 1974 I was well aware of it's past history in the 1935 railway accident which resulted in a double-collision between two northbound night expresses from Kings Cross which occurred just outside the box due to a signalman's error which resulted in the LNER adopting the so called 'Welwyn Control' on it's signal box block instruments which basically prevented a signalman from giving 'train out of section' and then accepting a second train into a block section from the box in the rear while a train was already or still in the block section between both s/boxes.

One day when I was at the box I brought with me to the box that day a railway book about railway accidents (I still have the actual book) and one of the chapters in the book dealt with the 1935 Welwyn Garden City accident and one of the resident signalmen the late Harry Fitzgerald who was at the box possibly from sometime during the early/mid 1960s until it closed in 1976 was during some of the quieter moments after 'the morning peak' that morning (and also after cooking and eating his usual fried breakfast) was sat reading from my book about the 1935 accident at the box and it was strange to actually be in the box that morning where the accident had happened about 37 years earlier in 1972 as it was then.

[Mickey]

One day when I was at the box I brought with me to the box that day a railway book about railway accidents (I still have the actual book) and one of the chapters in the book dealt with the 1935 Welwyn Garden City accident and one of the resident signalmen the late Harry Fitzgerald who was at the box possibly from sometime during the early/mid 1960s until it closed in 1976 was during some of the quieter moments after 'the morning peak' that morning (and also after cooking and eating his usual fried breakfast) was sat reading from my book about the 1935 accident at the box and it was strange to actually be in the box that morning where the accident had happened about 37 years earlier in 1972 as it was then.

The book

BRITISH RAILWAY ACCIDENTS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by J.A.B. HAMILTON Published by George Allen & Unwin in 1966

Chapter 16

WELWYN GARDEN CITY (THE) LONDON & NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY

This is the story of an inadequate personality, of a signalman who was not up to his job. In some other accidents we may suspect that if the signalman had been a little brighter of more alert there would have been no disaster. This is the only case in which it was said officially, in so many words, that he was not a suitable man to be in that box.
Signalman Shaw, as I will call him, was no novice. He had had twenty-three years experience, and Welwyn Garden City was his fourth box. His last box had been at Doncaster, a one-direction box with some permissive block working. Welwyn was his first No.1 box, and had been chosen for it by seniority rather than by merit. The stationmaster at Welwyn described him as 'an almost peculiarly quiet man; difficult to get anything out of him', while his instructor had noted that he had taken five weeks to learn the working of the box. A rather dim type, we might say, perhaps with a chip on his shoulder.

Welwyn Garden City is an unusually busy box. The four-track main line is flanked on either side by the single-line branches to Dunstable and Hertford, which though their junction points with the main line is at Hatfield only part company from it at Welwyn, so that the signalman there has (or had) three routes and six tracks to look after. The branch lines have no bearing on our story, but they meant that Welwyn more than usually was a box requiring a man who could keep his head at busy times, and Shaw was not such a one.
Shaw had not been in the box on his own for a week before he was in trouble. It was quite a small incident; he had pulled off the outer home signal too soon and allowed the driver to overrun the inner home signal at danger. It would have passed off with a mild reproof for a new man, but Shaw somehow managed to get in touch with the driver and to compound with him to hush it up. When it came to light, and the stationmaster ordered Shaw to makeout a report, he refused. So he found himself on the carpet at Kings Cross, not for the original error but for indiscipline, and received a severe reprimand, which was entered in his record. On the night of June 15th 1935, when he came on duty for the 10 o'clock night shift, awaiting him in the box was conformation of the reprimand in writing. In cold typescript the words seemed even more frightening than they had done verbally. Whether the state of mind they engendered had any effect on Shaw's actions a little over an hour later can only be conjectured, but it is at least possible that brooding resentment helped to take his mind off his work. We may think it tactless of the Company to hand such a document to a man just starting his night shift.

It was a Saturday night, and the 10:45 from Kings Cross to Newcastle was being run in two parts. The first train, No.825, left at the scheduled time. The second part, train No.825A, which was to take the costal route via Sunderland, left at 10:53, well filled with 280 passengers and hauled by one of the famous Ivatt Atlantics No.4441. Behind it, at 10:58, came train No.826, the newspaper express to Leeds due away at 10:50, with three passenger coaches among its eleven vehicles carrying fifty-seven passengers and hauled by 2-6-0 No.4009, one of Gresley's powerful K3 class, with nearly double the Atlantic's tractive effort though not weighing a great deal more. I shall refer to the trains by their reporting numbers.

We next pick up the story again at Hatfield.

To be continued shorthly...

[Mickey]

Continued from the page above...

We pick up the story again at 11:20 in Hatfield No.3 box, where signalman Crowe, who had been in the box for eighteen out of his thirty-four years service, had received Train Out Of Section from Shaw at Welwyn for train 825. The trains had been bunching up somewhat, and Crowe had already been offered the 'be ready' for train 825A from Hatfield No.1 box, which Crowe accepted and offered forward to Welwyn (on the Down fast line) where it was accepted by Shaw. Crowe sent Train Entering Section for 825A to Welwyn as it passed Hatfield No.3 at 11:22.

Over now to Welwyn box, where there had been a slight distraction. A parcel had been left on a train from Hertford, and some time before this the porter on duty had asked Shaw to phone Hatfield (station) about it; apparently he the porter could not do so himself. Now, at 11:22, Shaw's phone rang with the porter on the line a second time: could he please phone Hatfield about that parcel?. As he had already received Train Entering Section from Crowe in Hatfield No.3 for train 825A, Shaw's duty should have been to pull off his signals along the Down fast line, but for whatever reason-do we perceive a bit of cussedness here?-he made the call to Hatfield station about the parcel first. In consequence he was late clearing his signals. Driver Morris on No.4441 (Ivatt Atlantic) seeing the Welwyn distant signal at caution supposed he was running into the signals of train 825. So driver Morris shut off steam and applied the brakes. He had reduced his speed to about 15 m.p.h. when he saw the outer home signal 'come off' as Shaw tardily got down to pulling off his signals. Still supposing he was on the heels of train 825, Morris allowed his train to roll on towards and past the inner home signal and seeing the Welwyn starting signal beyond showing clear he 'popped' his whistle and put on steam again. Almost immediately he felt a violent impact as train 826 crashed into his rear!.

Back to Crowe in Hatfield No.3. One minute had passed, and it was now 11:23. To his surprise, Crowe received the Train Out Of Section signal from Shaw for train 825A a two and a half-mile block section apparently traversed in one minute?. Crowe had just been offered the 'be ready' for train 826 from Hatfield No.1, which Crowe accepted and offered forward to Shaw, who accepted it at once!. That seemed to Crowe, as he put it, a bit smart, so he picked up the phone and asked Shaw: "Is that out Fred?." "Yes," came the reply. Train 826 passed Hatfield No.3 at 11:25 and Crowe sent Train Entering Section to Welwyn. At 11:29 Crowe received OBSTRUCTION DANGER from Shaw at Welwyn. Crowe picked the phone up to be told by Shaw that train 826 has run into the rear or train 825A!. Crowe said "But you gave me Train Out Of Section for 825A at 11:23." There was no reply from Shaw. Shaw had wrongly gave Train Out Of Section and then gave a 'line clear' to Hatfield No.3 and accepted another train all in the space of a few minutes.

Driver Barnes of train 826, on his K3, was going well up the 1 in 200 rising gradient from Hatfield to Welwyn at 65 m.p.h. with the Welwyn signals showing green. But just as they approached Welwyn's outer home signal Barnes fireman shouted "ON"; it had changed to a RED. Beyond it Barnes saw the red tail light on train 825A some 300 or 400 yards ahead. Once again we must ask ourselves whether instantaneous action might not have prevented or reduced the accident. It was the same situation as at Hawes Junction on the Midland Railway in 1910: a fast-moving train closing on a slower-moving train, this time at a net speed of about 50 m.p.h. This would have decreased fast as train 825A gathered speed and train 826 braked. Partly no doubt it is the element of surprise which accounts for these relatively slow reactions; on the railway an accident practically never happens. I need hardly say that Driver Barnes was not held in any degree responsible for the accident. The train speed of 826 must still have been high at the moment of impact, for the results were spectacular!. The K3 drove right through the last coach of train 825A, the frame of which was festooned about the engine. The coach bogies, and those of the coach in front of it, were driven forward 140 yards!. No passengers in the last coach, nor the guard, survived. Including the guard, fourteen persons were killed. Extraordinary to relate, No.40009 (the Gresley K3) kept on the rails.

Equally spectacular, but in a favourable way, was the behaviour of the buck-eye couplings with which some of the vehicles in both trains were fitted. In the seven years since the Darlington collision the L.N.E.R. had taken heed of the Inspector's advice, and the results were shown now in the remarkably low death-toll, for such a violent crash, among a combined passenger compliment of over 300. In train No.825A the last coach but one was an all-steel vehicle fitted with buck-eye couplings and shock-absorbing buffers. Both its bogies were pushed forward as I have described, but the coupling in front held fast and supported the body, no one in it was seriously injured.

Tomorrow the concluding part of the 1935 Welwyn Garden City crash...

[Mickey]

Continued from the above page...

In train 826 the contrast was remarkable between the two types of coupling. The first three vehicles had buck-eye couplings, all of which held. The first vehicle, a van, partially telescoped into the engine's tender, but in the second not a pane of glass was broken. As showing how capricious are the effects of an accident, though the couplings in the third vehicle held, a number of passengers in it were seriously injured, doubtless by the shock of the impact. The six vehicles at no.4 to no.9, were ordinary screw couplings, were wrecked, but the last two with buck-eye couplings were not damaged.

Clearly the accident had been due to Shaw's wrong acceptance of train 826 (with train 825A already in the block section between both boxes). What had happened, it transpired at the inquiry, was that he had got mixed up between the two Newcastle trains, 825 and 825A. He had forgotten that he had already given Train Out Of Section for train 825 at 11:20, and had imagined that the train he accepted at 11:23 was 825A. There was no entry in the train register book for the acceptance from Hatfield No.3 of train 826. He had (also) been passing a train on the Up line at the same time, and the Inspecting Officer, Col. Mount, thought he had got thoroughly confused and had been ringing bell signals on the wrong block bells and 'pegging' the commutator on the wrong block instruments on the block shelf?. But Shaw was far from accepting the penitent's role. He tried to throw the blame on to Crowe in Hatfield No.3 which we may think was wholly in character. In the face of the evidence, he maintained that his Train Out Of Section signal referred to train 825 (and not train 825A) and he thought Crowe was referring to that train when he rang and asked : "Is that out?."

It was no thanks to Shaw, but out of the Welwyn disaster came something good. The Inspecting Officer put his finger on a weak spot in the safety arrangements and made a suggestion which was to have far-reaching results. I quote from the official report:

"As train 825A had not reached the track circuit (200 yards long) in the rear of the (outer) home signal when a second acceptance was given (for train 826) apparently the accident would have been prevented had the controls on the block instruments by this track circuit been such that, once 'Line Clear' had been transmitted, it could not have been transmitted a second time until the track circuit had been occupied and cleared."

This system was widely adopted on the L.N.E.R. It became known as 'Welwyn Control' and we find it being referred to at the Winsford accident on the LMS in 1948.

I close on a bizarre note, or rather notes. First odd item: many of the injured were found to be coated in a black grime, from some unknown source, which could not be removed in hospital even with ether. Second odd item: a Saturday night dance was in progress at the 'Cherry Tree' rooms nearby. When an appeal for cars was broadcast the dancers came pouring out, and the strange spectacle was witnessed of men and women in evening dress toiling among the rescuers. Lastly I must quote a remark by the stationmaster at Welwyn Garden City, justifiably proud of the promptitude with which aid was summoned. "Never, I think," he told a reporter, "has there been a train smash with less confusion."

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Scary stuff. What happen to 'Shaw'.........!!

manna

[Mickey]

G'Day Gents

Scary stuff. What happen to 'Shaw'.........!!

There isn't that much about him manna. The author of the book changed his surname to Shaw I presume because he may well still have been alive in 1966 when the book was first published. The only bits on him that I found out a few years ago was that he went through the signalling school at Retford in 1912 so I presume from that information alone he possibly originated from either around the north Nottinghamshire or south Yorkshire areas. The author says that Shaw was at a one-direction box at Doncaster before he went to Welwyn Garden City in 1935 so going on that information I presume that the Doncaster box that he may have been at was either Decoy No.1 that signalled trains on the Down lines south of Doncaster or Decoy No.2 or Potteric Carr both those boxes were also south of Doncaster with both boxes signalling trains on the Up lines?. Also assuming that he had also been a telegraph lad (a box lad) on the GNR before he went through the Retford signalling school in 1912 (I believe in those times you had to be at least 20 years old to become a signalman?) so that means the possibly assumption that he was aged about 20 years old when he went through the signalling school in 1912 so maybe he was born around 1891/92?. The only other thing that I also read about him was that he lived in Welwyn Garden City around the 'Ludwick Way' area which is in the centre part of the town from memory anyway he may well have moved from WGC after the crash?. If he remained living in WGC and he was still alive during the 1960s so that is possibly why the author changed his surname(?) and also the authors remark in the book that Shaw was 'still remembered by the Welwyn station staff' in the early/mid 1960s also could mean that he was still alive and was still living in WGC in 1966 when the book was first published which would have put him by that time in his mid/late 70s?.

I do know what his real surname was but I can't remember it off the top of my head without trying to look it up?.

[jwealleans]

The BOT report is here, Mickey, which will contain his real identity.

[John Palmer]

G'Day Gents

Scary stuff. What happen to 'Shaw'.........!!

manna

The name of the WGC signalman involved in the 1935 crash was Fred Howes, and the answer to the question of what became of him afterwards can be found on this forum at https://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic. ... 983#p88983.

Thanks to Mickey for for reproducing here J.A.B.Hamilton's account of the 1935 accident at Welwyn. I wasn't previously aware of it, but am sorry to say I'm not impressed by his version of the event. As signalmen go, Fred Howes may not have been the sharpest knife in the box, but I can see no justification in Lt Col Mount's report for the additional character shortcomings Hamilton feels free to attribute to him.

For example, Hamilton feels free to comment upon Howes as being “A rather dim type, we might say, perhaps with a chip on his shoulder.” Where is the evidence for any such chip? Further, when considering Howes' delay in pulling off for 825A “do we perceive a bit of cussedness here?” Why seek to plant such a suggestion in the reader's mind? In the absence of any explanation from Hamilton for these observations, they come across to me as singularly distasteful attempts to denigrate Howes without cause.

I imagine Hamilton obtained much of the material for his account of the accident from Lt Col Mount's report but I am struck by the frequency of his departure from the details of that report. A couple of examples to illustrate this:

According to Hamilton, “Crowe sent Train Entering Section for 825A to Welwyn as it passed Hatfield No.3 at 11:22.”, whereas Signalman Crowe's evidence as recorded in the official report is “The train passed me at about the same time and I sent 'Train-entering-Section' signal to Welwyn Garden City at 11.21 p.m.” It's not in dispute that the next signal Hatfield No.3 received was 'Train out of Section' at 11.23, so the Hamilton version implies that this train covered the 2.6 mile long section between Hatfield No.3 and WGC at a wholly unfeasible speed approaching two miles a minute. This makes a significant difference to any assessment of whether Crowe was right to accept Howes' assurance that the signal had been sent corrrectly – if less than two minutes had elapsed before he received the 'Train out' signal from WGC Crowe would surely have been obliged to disbelieve that assurance and conclude that something was amiss with Howes' working. And Hamilton has no excuse for the error: the correct time is plainly stated in Crowe's evidence.

Then there is Hamilton's misreporting of the telephone conversation between Crowe and Howes after the latter had sent 'Obstruction Danger' to Hatfield. According to Hamilton: “Crowe picked the phone up to be told by Shaw (Howes) that train 826 has run into the rear or train 825A! Crowe said 'But you gave me Train Out Of Section for 825A at 11:23.'” According to Crowe's evidence, however, the exchange went as follows: “I called up signalman Howes and asked him what was the matter and he said, '826 has run into the rear of 825.' I said, 'Why, you gave me out for him at 11.23,' and he made no answer; I distinctly heard the receiver put up on the telephone hook.” Contrary to Hamilton's version, Howes refers to 825 and not 825A, and Crowe doesn't identify either of the trains involved. There's a slight puzzle here as to why Crowe did not query Howe's reference to 825, for which he had received 'Out of Section' from WGC at 11.20, and that he made no mention of 825A, which was not specifically identified at any time during the course of this conversation. Howes did, however, refer to it as 'the second portion of 825' in his conversation with signalman Horace Ball at Welwyn North after the accident, suggesting that, contrary to Lt Col Mount's speculation, he had not forgotten that 825 was running in two portions that night.

Lt Col Mount conjectured that Howes accepted 826 under the mistaken impression that he was accepting 825A, but then goes on to raise the possibility that Howes simply 'forgot' 825A. The LNER view was that Howes had erroneously given 'Train out of Section' in respect of Up Goods 787 on the Hatfield No.3-WGC Down line instrument, and that Crowe at Hatfield had – after querying it with Howes – been persuaded that this referred to 825A, and that he was consequently entitled to offer 826. So, what is the most likely explanation of where Fred Howes went wrong that night?

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Thank you for the information, on this sad event, signalmen, is to me a very responsible position, not one I would take, but each to his own.

But in 'Shaw's' case I wonder if going from a one direction box to a two direction box was a step to far. !!

manna

[Mickey]

Thanks Mr.Wealleans, John & manna for your contributions. In the other railway accident accounts that the author deals with in his book entitled British Railway Accidents Of The Twentieth Century where he deals with 27 other railway accidents (between 1905-1962) and was first published in 1966 the author who had obviously read all the official accident reports into each of the 27 accidents makes his own personal comments about the individual persons involved and there character that in his opinion may have had a bearing on what transpired in each accident. The author condenses down each accident from the official accident report in to its own chapter of about 4 or 5 pages of script. The Welwyn Garden City accident appears in chapter 16.

On a personal note I really liked Welwyn Garden City box and still occasionally think about that old box some 50 years on in 2023. I wish I had taken some more interior photos of the box when I was a telegraph lad at the box but only on one occasion did I bring in with me a small Kodak instamatic camera and one evening at he end of a weekday evening peak service at about 8:00pm on a sunny summer evening in 1972 I took a couple of b&w photos from about lever no.30 looking northwards along the frame to the last lever no.85 that also featured half of the long block shelf and the end of the box where the small toilet was located and end windows. The two photos also featured a table in the right-foreground and behind it the high desk that had the train register book laying on it. Both photos came out a bit dim without me using a flash bulb but both photos were acceptable anyway as for the said two photos I lost them decades ago back in the later 1970s unfortunately.

[StevieG]

( / \ / \ ... / )
Mickey.

[Mickey]

( / \ / \ ... / )
Mickey.

Ha ha Stevie and as for the one single needle telegraph instrument and the associated x4 individual single needle circuits in the box which were-

1.Kings Cross-Hitchin circuit
2.Hatfield-Sandy circuit
3.Was disconnected but I suspect that it may have been either the Hatfield-Luton or Hatfield-Hertford s/n circuit?
4.Was disconnected but I suspect that it may have been either the Hatfield-Luton or Hatfield-Hertford s/n circuit?

That lot of S&T equipment including the fine wooden single needle telegraph instrument and the associated wooden cabinet housing the x4 separate other s/n circuits stood maybe about 4ft off the box floor and was placed to the left-hand side of the high desk with the train register book laying on it. Also to the left of the high desk and telegraph instruments was the Kings Cross Control phone circuit that covered all the s/boxes between New Southgate box & Huntingdon North No.1 box. Underneath the S&T single needle instruments and equipment was several wooden lookers in a row on the box floor that stood about 2ft high that apparently doubled as a bed during the wee small hours for the night turn signalman when it all went a bit quiet.

I didn't work any 'night turns' when I was at the box (July 1972-March 1974) and only covered the 06:00-14:00hrs 'early turn' and 14:00-22:00hrs 'late turn' every other week and no Saturdays just Monday to Friday.

[jwealleans]

Mickey, Steve White of the GNRS was trying to post these but wasn't able to. These are of the clearup after the Welwyn accident. Steve may be able to comment on their provenance.

[Mickey]

In the picture above showing Welwyn box.

The box was extended at some unknown date at the south end (the door end) because from the outside you could definitely see the change in the colour of brickwork especially on wet/rainy days and I presume the reason for that extension was to accommodate the 20 lever 'Luton frame' which was basically redundant by around 1967/68 when a siding opposite platform no.1 (now days platform no.4) and its set of points and a couple of full-size semaphore stop signals outside the box were all abolished. The only levers that were still in use when I arrived at the box as a telegraph lad in July 1972 were two 'brown levers' at the extreme left-hand end of the 20 lever 'Luton frame' which both worked the individual Up & Down barrier arms protecting the barrow crossing across the four main running lines outside the box.

I presume when the box originally opened in 1926 the original 'pegging' & non-pegging block instruments were 3-position GNR block instruments in origin but were later on replaced by L.N.E.R. Thompson 3-position block instruments that remained on the block shelf until the NX panel replaced the lever frame in September 1973. From memory the Thompson block instruments all had there own 'bell tapper' and the block instruments that worked with Hatfield no.2 on the Up & Down fast and Up & Down slow lines (and before Hatfield no.3 closed in November 1969 the Down fast & Down slow lines only) the block bells with Hatfield no.2 were duplecated on the blockshelf with a second single stroke block bell mounted on the blockshelf beside the Thompson block instruments on both the Up & Down fast & Up & Down slow lines so the signalman in Welwyn Garden City could either 'ring on' to Hatfield no.2 on fast or slow lines Thompson block instruments or the fast or slow lines separate single stroke block bells it didn't really matter. The 'pegging handle' on those Thompson block instruments had a black coloured round hard plastic handle and were either in the central position for 'line blocked' of turned to the left to give a 'line clear' or turned to the right for 'train on line' and all quite easy to use.