Sonning railway accident

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The scene of the accident in a contemporary view
The accident site in 2008

In the Sonning railway accident on the morning of December 24, 1841, a mixed train of the Great Western Railway (GWR) on the Great Western Main Line from London-Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads Station derailed when it fell into a landslide . 9 travelers died.

Realities

The site of the accident was located in the approximately 20 meter deep cut of the Sonning Cutting at Sonning near Reading , which was approximately 13 meters wide in the track area and almost 90 meters wide in the upper area. On the night of December 24th, persistent rainfall triggered a landslide in the embankment that buried the track towards Bristol up to a meter high. There had been landslides nearby. One of the witnesses who testified in the subsequent investigation stated that he had already observed a minor landslide at this point 14 days earlier. The section in question had last been checked the day before at around 5 p.m. and the staff of a train in the opposite direction that had passed the site at 4:30 a.m. had not noticed anything, so the landslide must have come off later.

The train consisted of a locomotive with a tender , then two open third- class passenger cars , a baggage car and a series of 16 heavily loaded freight cars . This arrangement of the car was considered to be the safest for travelers, since rear-end collisions occurred primarily .

Course of events

The train had left Paddington station at 4:30 am with 38 passengers and was approaching the danger zone at around 7:30 am. There it drove into the obstacle in the dark. The locomotive derailed and came to a standstill. Due to the inertia of the freight cars, they pushed themselves into the passenger cars and crushed them between their own mass and the locomotive.

consequences

Immediate consequences

9 travelers died, 16 were also seriously injured. The majority of the accident victims were stonemasons who, among other things, had worked on the building of the House of Parliament in London and were on their way home for Christmas holidays. One of the victims, like the other injured, was initially taken to Reading Hospital, but died a few days later.

After the news of the accident reached London, Isambard Kingdom Brunel , chief engineer of the GWR , rode a special train with 100 workers to the scene of the accident to evacuate it.

Legal consequences

The official investigation was opened by a jury under a coroner on the day of the accident around 3 p.m. in the Shepherd's House Inn , which was nearby. It came to the conclusion that individual culpability for the death of the victims could not be proven. However, there were two points of criticism: On the one hand, the fact that the passenger coaches were positioned between the locomotive and the freight car. Where the safest position for passenger coaches was in a mixed train was a matter of dispute among experts. A year earlier, in the Howden railway accident, the freight car ran in front of the passenger cars, which was what caused the accident in the first place. The second point of criticism was that the monitoring of the danger zone was insufficient. The jury applied the law of the deodand and determined the value of the train involved in the accident at £ 1,000 that could have been paid out to the victims. Ultimately, however, the Great Western Railway did not have to pay this deodand , as the appellate body came to the conclusion that the slipped embankment had been built according to the rules of technology , the landslide was an act of God and the railway company was not to blame. The fact that the Deodand could become a negative economic factor for the railroad companies was something they did not want to accept and exercised a corresponding influence on parliament . But this also saw the need to adequately compensate victims of rail accidents. Ultimately, this led to a compromise in which in 1846 both a law on compensation for rail accidents (Fatal Accidents Act 1846) was passed and the legal instrument of the Deodand was abolished (Deodands Act 1846).

Operational consequences

As a result of the criticism following the investigation into the accident, the train composition was changed and closed, more stable vehicles also prevailed in the third car class . The Railway Regulation Act 1844 then prescribed closed vehicles also for the third class.

literature

Web links

See also

Remarks

  1. ↑ This is why there are also reports that speak of eight dead.
  2. ↑ Also: Lord Campbell's Act named after the initiator of the legislation, John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Times v. December 25, 1841.
  2. ^ Letter to the editor about the accident. In: The Mechanic's Magazine . January 1842.
  3. ↑ Rolt, p. 36.
  4. ^ W. Cornish and G. Clarke: Law and Society in England 1750-1950 . London 1989. ISBN 0-421-31150-9 , pp. 503f; RW Kostal: Law and English Railway Capitalism, 1825-1875 . Clarendon Press 1994. ISBN 0-19-825671-X , pp. 289f.
  5. ↑ Railway Regulation Act 1844 (PDF; 845 kB)

Coordinates: 51 ° 27 ′ 45.6 "  N , 0 ° 54 ′ 27.9"  W.