Radstock rail accident

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The Radstock rail accident took place on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway in south west England, on August 7, 1876. Two trains collided on a single track section, resulting in fifteen passengers being killed.

It was difficult to assign blame to any individual for the crash. The underlying cause was that the Somerset and Dorset Railway was essentially bankrupt at the time of the crash. The infrastructure was inadequate to the demands of the traffic and the staff were inadequately trained for their duties.

1 Background
2 The crash
3 Aftermath
4 See also
5 Sources
6 External links

[edit] Background

The S&D Railway had constructed an extension to Bath in 1874, and this had ruined the company's finances. To rescue the railway, the Midland Railway and London and South Western Railway had bought a 999-year lease on the railway and formed a new management, but had not had time to reform matters.

The extension from Evercreech to Bath was single-track. The dangers of working single track railways had long been recognised, and all sorts of safeguards were supposed to be in place. There were crossing places at the stations at Radstock and Wellow, but at Foxcote in between, the S&D Railway had constructed a signal box. Ostensibly, this was to control a spur to Braysdown Colliery, but it was often used to allow two trains at once into the section between Radstock and Wellow, in defiance of Regulations (the Board of Trade rules laid down that only one train could occupy a single line section at any one time).

The S&D later claimed rather lamely that they understood Foxcote to be a "crossing place between sections", which it clearly was not. The existence of the Foxcote signal box complicated normal telegraphic communications. The Radstock and Wellow signalmen could communicate with each other only through Foxcote. At the same time, the telegraph control office at Glastonbury had no direct link with Foxcote, and could only contact it via Radstock or Wellow.

This awkward arrangement was in the hands of entirely inexperienced staff. On the night of the crash, none of the signalmen or telegraph clerks involved was more than eighteen years old. The signalman at Foxcote, Alfred Dando, was barely literate and not physically strong enough to work his signal levers. Before power-operated signals and points came into common use, they were worked mechanically via wires or rods from the levers, and signalmen needed considerable strength and agility.

[edit] The crash

On August 7, the August Bank Holiday, no less than seventeen extra trains were run to cater for people enjoying the day off work. These trains did not appear in the normal timetables and the harassed superintendent at Glastonbury, Caleb Percy, had to arrange crossings i.e. issue instructions as to which trains were to be delayed to allow the special trains to be passed over the single line sections. To do so smoothly required good communications between himself and the various stations and signal boxes, but these were poor throughout the day.

Both trains involved in the accident were unscheduled. The "down" (south-bound) train was supposedly an empty stock train returning from Bath, but large numbers of passengers returning to Radstock were aboard. The "up" (north-bound) train was a relief train from Bournemouth, arranged hastily because the scheduled train was overcrowded. Percy and his staff could get very little information on the location of either train. The replies to their enquiries from the telegraph clerk at Wellow (who was only fifteen, and trying to do the work of the stationmaster who had gone for a drink in Midford) were vague. Those from Radstock were apparently deliberately obtuse. The Radstock telegraph clerk appears to have sent on the "up" relief train without receiving any crossing order or ascertaining the location of the "down" train.

Shortly before midnight, the driver of the "up" train pulled up at the Foxcote signal box, where Dando was waving a hand lamp. The signal arm was somewhere between "safe" and "caution" (as Dando was not strong enough to pull it fully to either position), and the signal lamp was out (as he was not given enough oil to light it). After a few minutes, Dando allowed him to proceed. Unfortunately, the clerk at Wellow had already sent the "down" stock train on, but without using his block instruments to alert Dando. The "down" train driver could not see the Foxcote distant signal, as it too was unlit. He saw the home signal against him, and also saw the other train, too late to avoid a collision.

A surprising number of the casualties were from Radstock or nearby villages, who were travelling home from Bath, where a regatta had been taking place, on the "down" special train.

[edit] Aftermath

As might be imagined, subsequent enquiries were confused by inadequate or conflicting testimony. Although the clerk at Wellow, Arthur Hillard, might normally have been expected to be blamed, it was obviously unjust to place the entire responsibility on a fifteen-year old youth who was doing the job of several senior staff, in an environment of such corporate misconduct.

The accident spurred the new management into urgent reforms. The track between Radstock and Wellow was doubled, and the signalling and staff arrangements overhauled. There were to be no further major accidents on the line until it was closed in the 1960s.

(Almost exactly sixty years later, on August 4, 1936, the crew of an empty colliery wagon train at Foxcote mistakenly abandoned their engine, fearing an imminent collision with another train. The driverless train caused widespread damage at Wellow and Midford stations before becoming derailed only a few miles from Bath, but no lives were lost.)