Railway accident at Harrow and Wealdstone Railway Station

The accident site from the north

There were three trains involved in the railway accident at Harrow and Wealdstone station on October 8, 1952 . 122 dead and 340 injured were lost and there was considerable damage also to the affected railway infrastructure of the station of Harrow and Wealdstone , London .

Starting position

Harrow and Wealdstone Station is on the West Coast Main Line . He had three pairs of tracks , one pair for the local and long-distance traffic as well as another couple for the marketing of DC - drive vehicles on the Bakerloo Line of the London Underground equipped.

Three trains were involved in the accident:

• A passenger train , pulled by a steam locomotive , with nine passenger cars , was traveling from Tring to Euston Station in London . It was particularly busy with around 800 passengers because the next train on the connection was canceled that day. Shortly before the station, the passenger train had been transferred from the track for local traffic , on which it had been traveling up until then, to the track for long-distance traffic , since the local track was used for shunting movements . Once at the station, the passenger train stopped there.
• A night express train of the " London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS)", which was traveling at almost 100 km / h from Perth in Scotland and about 80 minutes late to London-Euston. He drove eleven carriages in which about 85 passengers traveled.
• Another express train that ran from London-Euston to Liverpool and Manchester in the opposite direction and was also traveling at almost 100 km / h. The train had 15 carriages in which about 200 passengers traveled and was pulled by two locomotives.

Accident

The locomotive crew on the Perth Night Express disregarded both the pre- signal and two main signals that commanded "stop" and covered the passenger train stopping at Harrow and Wealdstone station. It was not possible to explain why the signals were disregarded, since both the engine driver and the stoker were killed in the accident . The engine driver's autopsy did not reveal any evidence of alcohol , carbon monoxide poisoning, or any other health problem. The signal system used could not trigger an emergency brake . The night express train hit the stopping passenger train at high speed. The collision occurred at 8:19 a.m.

The express train traveling north reached the scene of the accident just seconds after the first accident had occurred. His leading locomotive drove almost unbraked into the derailed locomotive of the night express train and also derailed. The derailed express train to Liverpool and Manchester tore a pedestrian overpass with it. People died on it and on the platforms , as did the engine driver of the second express train. Its two locomotives ( LMR Jubilee Class 45637 “ Windward Islands ” and LMR Princess Royal Class 46202 “ Princess Anne ”) were so badly damaged that they had to be scrapped after the accident. The latter had only been in service for a few months. The locomotive of the night express train, LMS HP Class 46242, on the other hand, could be repaired and put back into service.

consequences

122 people died, 112 immediately, another 10 in the following period, and 340 were injured, 88 of them so seriously that they had to be hospitalized. 16 passenger cars were destroyed, 13 of which were squeezed into a space of only 40 meters. It was only at 12:15 p.m. that all of the injured were cared for and taken away. The search for further victims lasted until 1:30 a.m. the following day. The damage to the railway infrastructure was considerable. In order to be able to guarantee the rescue and recovery work unhindered, the station was not used for 24 hours and because of the destruction only provisional operation on two tracks was possible afterwards. It was not until October 12 that all tracks were available again for rail operations. On October 14, 1952, the Queen's special train , who was on her way back from Balmoral Castle to London, passed through the station at a greatly reduced speed. A photo showing the passage also shows a temporary overpass that temporarily replaced the bridge destroyed in the accident.

It was the most momentous railway accident in Great Britain in peacetime. (The most momentous overall occurred during the First World War on May 22, 1915 in the Quintinshill depot - see: Quintinshill railway accident .)

The accident accelerated the widespread introduction of the Automatic Warning System at British Rail , which initially triggers an alarm sound when a vehicle has passed a signal indicating "Stop" and then applies the emergency brake.

A commemorative plaque was placed at Harrow and Wealdstone Station in 2002 to mark the 50th anniversary of the accident .

See also

• List of rail accidents in the UK

literature

• IFE Coombs: The Harrow Railway Disaster: 25 Years On. David and Charles 1977 . ISBN 0-7153-7409-5 .
• JAB Hamilton: Disaster Down the Line: Train Accidents of the Twentieth Century . Cassell 1987. ISBN 978-0-7137-1973-4 .
• Geoffrey Kitchenside: Great Train Disasters . Paragon 1977. ISBN 978-0-7525-2229-6 .
• Ministry of Transport: Report on the double collision which occurred on 8th October 1952 at Harrow and Wealdstone Station . London 1953 (PDF; 3.1 MB).
• OS Nock: Historic Railway Disasters . Ian Allan 1978.
• Lionel Thomas Caswell Rolt : Red for Danger . Edition: London 1978. ISBN 0-330-25555-X , pp. 280f.
• Ascanio Schneider u. Armin Masé: Disasters on the rails. Railway accidents, their causes and consequences . Zurich 1968, pp. 59–65.
• Peter Tatlow: Harrow and Wealdstone 50 Years On: Clearing up the Aftermath . The Oakwood Press 2002. ISBN 0-85361-593-4 .

Web links

• Photos from the accident
• Pathé Newsreel: First report on the accident
• Pathé Newsreel: Second report on the accident
• MovieTone Newsreel: Report on the accident on youtube.com
• BBC: Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash: Boy rescuer remembers devastation .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ministry of Transport, p. 10.
2. ↑ BBC report on British train accidents on YouTube
3. ^ Rolt: Red for Danger , p. 281.
4. ^ Ministry of Transport, p. 2.
5. ↑ Patrick Kingston: Royal Trains . London 1985. ISBN 0-7153-8594-1 , p. 95.
6. ↑ BBC: On this day 1952: Many die as three trains crash at Harrow .
7. ^ NN: Survivors remember crash victim . In: Harrow Times v. October 11, 2002 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 35 ′ 30.2 "  N , 0 ° 20 ′ 4.3"  W.