Newark railroad accident
In the Newark railway accident on June 21, 1870 in Newark-on-Trent , Nottinghamshire , United Kingdom , a train derailed after a broken axle, whereupon a second, oncoming train drove into its car. 18 people died.
Starting position
The railway accident occurred on the Midland Railway network . A freight train was traveling on a double-track line near Newark-on-Trent. A special excursion train was approaching on the opposite track.
the accident
On an older , two-axle freight car , no. 3238, which had been placed on the train, a hairline crack had developed in one axle due to material fatigue , which led to the axle breaking. The car derailed, as did some of the following cars that the first car also derailed. The engine driver of the train noticed the incident and initiated a brake. At least one of the freight cars got into the clearance profile of the opposite track when derailing . The locomotive driver of the freight train tried to warn the special excursion train approaching on the opposite track - unsuccessfully. The passenger train drove into the derailed freight car.
consequences
Immediate consequences
18 people died and 40 others were injured. Of the 24 victims admitted to Newark Hospital, 14 had died by the time they arrived. At least three others died there in the next few hours. Most of the victims were in the first wagons of the special excursion train. One of the locomotive drivers died immediately: the upper part of the skull was knocked off in the accident.
Technical consequences
The crack in the axle that led to the break was - as Henry Whatley Tyler from the Railway Inspectorate subsequently noted in the investigation report he wrote - could not be determined with the technical possibilities available at the time. There was also no record of the origin, age, history or running time of the axis causing the accident.
Such accidents have not happened often since the railway started operating, but they have happened again and again. The most momentous was the Versailles railway accident in 1842, with at least 50 deaths. First pointed William John Macquorn Rankine on the development of hairline cracks by external damage to the claimed components out without being penetrated with it against the then prevailing doctrine, said that in the corresponding parts of a re- crystallization of the iron full draw. It was only after the Timelkam railway accident in 1875 that August Wöhler , who had carried out intensive research on this topic, succeeded in penetrating his knowledge of the different behavior of steel under pressure and tension as well as constant and changing loads. This is considered to be the beginning of modern materials testing and standardization .
See also
literature
- Lionel Thomas Caswell Rolt : Red for Danger . 1956. ISBN 978-0-7509-2047-6
- PR Lewis: Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847 . 2007. ISBN 978-0-7524-4266-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Appelby [senior physician at Newark Hospital]: The Railway Accident At Newark . In: British Medical Journal, Vol. 2, v. July 2, 1870, p. 15.
- ^ Railways Archives - Accidents Archives.
- ↑ The original endurance test machine for tensile load of Wohler in 1860 is at the Deutsches Museum in Munich; Fig. In Lit. Krankenhagen: Material Testing , 1978, p. 51 (pdf p. 6)
Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 21 " N , 0 ° 47 ′ 34.4" W.