railway accidents

[hq1hitchin]

Thanks Bullhead, I'd not seen the Audenshaw report before. Difference would seem to be that the man at Connington Sth deliberately set out to derail a train, no similar evil intent at Audenshaw.

BTW, I always found Connington a bleak place, even in summer. The area outside the North box was reputedly haunted, and it even featured on the local TV news. It wasn't until some time afterwards it turned out to be a big hoax perpetrated, so it is said, to dissuade relief men from wanting to go and work the box!

The repercussions of the 1957 accident at WGC are described in some detail in Gerry Fiennes second book, New England men were reporting all sorts of signal irregularities approaching there, but didn't always get their story straight

[hq1hitchin]

Another batch of accident reports on this website, some fascinating little details in there as ever. In the accident at Barford Autos, when the rear four wheel van on 918 up, the 10.20 p.m. York to King's Cross (K3 hauled) became derailed and was struck by 33 down, the 1.10 a.m. King's Cross to Newcastle sleeper train, sadly fatally injuring the driver on the GN Atlantic working that, it turned out that the fish van involved was conveying two tons of hosiery traffic from Leicester to London and had been attached at Grantham. Why, I wonder, didn't they just load the traffic at Leicester Central and sent it direct to Marylebone? And why a fish van?
It also gives an insight into how badly organised, and I don't like to say this, the railways were then in some respects when it came to handling emergencies - it took ages to get the poor driver to a hospital. In others, such as resumption of normal working after an incident, they really excelled, however

[R. pike]

The Barford Auto Stop signals can be seen on this Tempsford signal box diagram. They are simply refered to as up auto stop and down auto stop by this date.. I'm just looking for the corresponding St Neots diagram to upload... http://richard2890.fotopic.net/p26771265.html

[R. pike]

St Neots now added.. A much older diagram than Tempsford and not showing Little Barford Power Station Sidings so there is a good chance this diagram will date from the time of the accident at Barford Auto's

http://richard2890.fotopic.net/p50298111.html

[redtoon1892]

Seems to be plenty info here http://www.class47.co.uk/c47_feature_421.php on the more recent mishaps.