Winsford Railway Accident (1948)

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In the Winsford railway accident on April 17, 1948 , a mail train on a night express train from Glasgow to London Euston drove at Winsford on the West Coast Main Line , formerly the London, Midland and Scottish Railway . 24 people died. This was the first major accident after British Railways was founded a few months earlier .

Starting position

The express train from Glasgow at 17:40 to London Euston consisted of 10 bogie cars , three baggage cars and 7 passenger cars . The train was pulled by a class 7 ( 2-D-1 ) locomotive with road number 6702.

The express train was followed by the mail train in the same relation with 13 bogie cars, pulled by the 2-C-1 Pacific of the "Coronation" series, No. 6251, " City of Nottingham ". Behind the locomotive ran a freight wagon , the fresh milk transported, this followed different Postwagen the Royal Mail .

Both trains ran on the West Coast Main Line. The block section established here between Winsford Junction and Winsford station was about 2.5 km long. The mail train was delayed so that the planned overhaul did not take place in Lancaster , but the mail train still followed the express train that was on time.

the accident

The express train had been reported from the Winsford Junction signal box to the nearest signal box, Winsford station , and accepted from there. The employee there was busy preparing his meal and thus distracted from the business.

A 19-year-old, in the artillery military service quietest border railway workers on leave, who came from Winsford and the interlocking Winsford Junction had been on duty, pulled to 12:10 the emergency brake in a toilet when the train approaches the station Winsford, Cheshire approached, to get off and walk home across the fields since he lived nearby. Otherwise he would have had to drive to Crewe , the next stop on the train, from which a train to Winsford did not leave until that morning. He was familiar with the signaling system around Winsford station and therefore assumed that the train was perfectly safe when it stopped.

The stoker and the conductor tried to find out the reason for the emergency braking and to secure the train to the rear. For this purpose, the main air line of the whole train was examined and the train driver got himself blasting capsules and a warning lamp . He laid the blast capsules up to 400 meters (1/4 mile ) behind the broken-down express train. By the time he did that, however, it had been 17 minutes since the train stopped.

The night train had come to a halt 600 meters from the contact that would have indicated the signal box at Winsford station that the train was approaching. The employee in the station signal box was busy with his dinner and the passage of a freight train in the opposite direction. He said - or so he stated afterwards - that the night express train on the platform behind the passing freight train had also passed the station. He therefore assumed that the train had left the previous block section, reported it back to Winsford Junction and to the next block post, Minshull Vernon. The employee in Winsford Junction therefore reported the following mail train to Winsford station, which also accepted it. Winsford Junction therefore set the signal for the mail train to "run free".

The engine driver of the mail train was trying hard to catch up on the delay on the flat, straight stretch near Winsford. He therefore accelerated his train to 115 km / h. When he saw the red signal lamp of the conductor of the night express train and heard the detonators explode, he initiated an emergency braking . However, the remaining braking distance was no longer sufficient to prevent the collision. The collision occurred at 12:27 a.m. at a speed of around 65–70 km / h. The locomotive of the mail train and its tender derailed with all wheels . The rearmost car of the express train, a 3rd class open seating car , was smashed and its rubble pushed into the car in front of it, a mixed-class car with a side aisle. All the people who died were in these two cars. The second to fourth carriages of the mail train were pushed into each other in an area of ​​only 25 meters in length. The derailed wagons of the trains now protruded into the track in the opposite direction. The next northbound mail train could be stopped at Winsford station. Almost 100 meters of the superstructure were damaged.

consequences

Locomotive of the mail train after the accident

24 people died, 18 others were seriously injured, 14 slightly.

A conductor on the mail train reached the Winsford Junction signal box on foot , triggering the emergency alarm. Doctors from the area were alerted via the telephone exchange , the first arrived at around 1:15 a.m. It took until 4:50 a.m. to recover the last victims. At 2:50 a.m., the five front cars of the express train, which were only slightly damaged, were brought to Crewe with the passengers who were able to travel .

The railroad worker who pulled the emergency brake surrendered to the investigation and worked at the Winsford Junction signal box until the 1990s.

See also

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ At that time, British Railways only had two car classes: 1st class and 3rd class.

Coordinates: 53 ° 11 '49.4 "  N , 2 ° 30' 0.2"  W.