Straffan railway accident
The Straffan Railway Accident was a freight train rear-end collision with a passenger train at Straffan Station , County Kildare , on October 5, 1853. 18 people died. To date it is the third worst rail accident in Ireland .
Starting position
The Dublin – Cork line of the Great Southern and Western Railway was opened in 1847 and was operated without a line block , the trains ran at intervals. This meant that after a train left a station on the route, the next one was allowed to follow it after a set time. If a train got stuck, someone had to be sent towards the next train to signal that the line was still occupied.
The fog was thick that day and by the time of the accident it was already well advanced into nightfall. So the visibility was bad.
The afternoon express train from Cork to Dublin consisted of a steam locomotive with a tender , three 3rd class cars and two 1st class cars, with a total of 45 passengers . In Portarlington , the express train overtook a freight train with 20 cars , which then followed it on the same route.
the accident
At around 6:20 p.m. the express train had almost reached Straffan station when a connecting rod on the locomotive broke. The train stopped a mile south of the station. A lawyer , a passenger on the train who worked for the railway company, instructed the stoker of the steam locomotive to secure the rear of the train, stop the freight train and get it to push the broken-down train to Dublin. A number of travelers got off the train. However, the stoker took neither a signal lamp nor bang capsules with him when he ran towards the freight train. With the prevailing, poor visibility, he was not noticed by the train crew of the freight train.
After about 15 minutes, the approaching freight train could be heard from the broken-down express train and the travelers got back on the train. However, the freight train approached at full speed and collided with the broken-down passenger train , smashing its last three passenger cars , pushing the remaining cars through Straffan station and only came to a stop 400 meters later.
consequences
18 people died and an unknown number of people were injured.
The stoker of the locomotive of the express train, the locomotive driver of the freight train and its driver were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter .
William Allingham wrote a poem about the accident , The magic car of modern skill , which was published in his collection of poems Day and Night Songs the year after the accident .
literature
- Eoghan Corry and Jim Tancred: Annals of Ardclough . 2004.
- Dublin Evening Mail v. October 7, 1853.
-
Freeman's Journal v.
- October 6, 1853
- October 8, 1853
- October 10, 1853
- House of Commons Inquiry into Railway Accidents 1853-4.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ The text is reproduced in the parallel article in the English language Wikipedia .