Railway accident at Abergele
In the Abergele railway accident on August 20, 1868, near the village of Abergele in the county of Conwy in Wales, an express train with runaway freight cars collided . In the wreckage, 33 people died in the subsequent fire from leaking paraffin oil. This was the worst rail accident in Great Britain to date .
Starting position
On August 20, 1868, the Irish Mail of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), an express train, was on the way from London's Euston Station to Holyhead . The train consisted of the locomotive , a car for the driver , two rail mail cars , baggage cars , four passenger carriages and another car for a train attendant at the end of the train . The train was at 07:30 in London departed and at 11:30 in Chester arrived. There another four passenger coaches were placed on the train in front of the passenger coaches that had come from London. He was now sailing the North Wales Coast Line . At 12:39 p.m. the train passed through Abergele station at around 65 km / h. The doors of the passenger coaches were - as was customary at the time - locked from the outside for security reasons.
In Llanddulas he was a freight train to pass, which was but with 43 freight cars too long to him altogether in one of the two located there siding to ask, because once freight cars were parked for loading material from a nearby quarry. The freight train therefore had to be divided. During the necessary shunting maneuver , six freight cars and one brake car were temporarily parked on the through track, which had a gradient of 1% in the direction of Abergele. The parked cars were only held by the brakes of the brake car, the brakes of the individual cars were not activated. The two brakes had dismounted to help with the maneuvering maneuver. The parked car group was covered by the entrance signal of the station, i. H. the following Irish Mail would have met a signal showing "stop" before entering the station.
accident
During a maneuvering maneuver, a group of cars with too much impulse hit the group of cars parked. Its brake released and it rolled down a 2.8 km downhill gradient towards the approaching express train. Due to the location of the line in two opposite curves and cuts , the train driver of the Irish Mail only saw the wagons approaching when they were only 200 m away. The engine driver and stoker triggered an emergency brake, the engine driver was able to jump off in time and got away with injuries, the stoker remained on the machine.
The train was probably still moving at a speed of 45–50 km / h when it was hit by the escaped freight cars at around 20–25 km / h. The locomotive, tender and the driver's car derailed. Two of the escaped freight cars had 50 wooden barrels loaded with a total of 8 cubic meters of paraffin oil, some of which were destroyed by the impact. Paraffin oil can have a flash point below 100 ° C. It spilled onto the locomotive and the first four passenger coaches of the express train caught fire. The locomotive, the tender and all cars up to and including the leading rail mail car were on fire in seconds. Since the doors of the passenger coaches were locked, the travelers had no chance of escaping.
Rescue was no longer possible here, all passengers in the first four cars were killed, as well as the train attendant in the first car and the stoker. The following passenger cars could be uncoupled and brought to safety before the flames spread to them. They remained undamaged. There weren't even any seriously injured people there. These travelers were able to continue their journey around 6 p.m.
Accident victim
The cars in front burned at such a high temperature that only three of the dead could be identified. The others were buried in a mass grave in the cemetery of St. Michaels Church in Abergele. Among those who could be identified from personal effects was Henry Maxwell, 7th Baron Farnham . His wife Anna, née Stapleton, was also killed.
James Hamilton , later the first Duke of Abercorn , then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , was in one of the rear cars and was unharmed.
examination
The official investigation report has been prepared by Colonel of the pioneers made FH Rich, who also directed the railway accident at Staplehurst had examined. He saw the main cause of the accident in the fact that the brakemen responsible for the escaped car had not acted properly. He also criticized the operation in the station and on the part of the LNWR in general because there was a lack of supervision and the track systems were undersized. He also complained that dangerous goods were transported like any other cargo without additional safety measures. Although not a requirement of the report, safety switches were installed in the following period, which divert runaway wagons away from the through tracks. It was not until 1879 that the transport of dangerous liquid goods by rail was regulated in Great Britain.
The two brakes of the brake car, which was under the runaway car, were accused of manslaughter , but were acquitted in the criminal proceedings.
literature
- Robert Hume: Death by Chance: The Abergele Train Disaster 1868 . Llanrwst 2004: ISBN 0-86381-900-1
- Geoffrey Kichenside: Great Train Disasters . Avonmouth 1997. ISBN 0-7525-2229-9 , pp. 21f.
- Oswald Stevens Nock: Historic Railway Disasters . Ian Allan Ltd. 1980. ISBN 0-7110-1752-2 , pp. 21-24.
- LTC Rolt: Red for Danger . 4th ed. Newton Abbot 1982. ISBN 0-7153-8362-0 , pp. 181-184.
- John Murray: Railwaymen Politics & Money . London 1997. ISBN 0-7195-5150-1 , pp. 153-154.
- Adrian Vaughan: Railway Blunders . Hersham 2003. ISBN 0-7110-2836-2 , p. 25.
See also
Web links
- Robert Hume: Great train disaster. BBC , April 26, 2006 (PDF; 534 kB, English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The rail accident at Versailles took a similar course almost a quarter of a century earlier.
- ↑ Investigation report (PDF; 304 kB)
- ^ Petroleum Act 1879.
Coordinates: 53 ° 17 '19.8 " N , 3 ° 37' 3.3" W.