The Wetheral train accident occurred at about 4pm on Saturday 3rd December 1836 when a passenger train on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway was wrongly diverted into a siding at Wetheral, a village close to Carlisle, Cumbria. The train derailed and crushed three people to death.[1]
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The railway between Newcastle and Carlisle opened in sections from March 1835, with the whole line opening to passengers on 18 June 1838.
A few hundred yards to the west of Wetheral station is the village of Great Corby where there was a siding that led to some coal staiths (where the track was supported above ground level to allow easy transfer of coal from rail wagons into road wagons). The staiths were owned by Lord Carlisle. The siding was entered from the Newcastle direction and when travelling from the Newcastle direction there is quite a steep gradient down to the siding. The operation of the point for the siding was the responsibility of an employee of the siding owner, Lord Carlisle (and not the railway company), and part of the responsibility was to make sure the point was left set for the mainline, not the siding, once trains had passed onto and away from the siding.
At about 4pm on Saturday 3rd December 1836, a train from Newcastle was travelling to Carlisle, drawn by the locomotive SAMSON, with 26 passengers aboard plus a heavy load of goods. About half a mile before the siding the driver shut the locomotive regulator and the train descended the gradient.
On reaching a bridge just before the siding, the train driver saw a man upon the line and signalled to him to get out of the way. The driver then saw that the point to the siding was set for the siding rather than the mainline. He set the locomotive into reverse and he and the fireman leaped off. Because of the downward gradient the train carried on its way unchecked.
The train ran onto the siding and onto the staiths. Six empty coal wagons which were standing there were struck and driven off the track. The stone pillars of the staiths that supported the track, gave way, and the engine fell about eight feet, destroying the whole framework of the staiths. The tender followed. Next to the locomotive was an open horse wagon laden with corn that fell but landed upright. The horse wagon was followed by a laden freight wagon that fell upon the horse wagon.
Although one of the passenger carriages was badly damaged, all of the carriages stopped just before falling and stayed upon the tracks. All except one of passengers escaped without any injury: he had his hand jammed between broken timbers.
Unfortunately, a man named Henry Johnston, a dyer from Warwick, was on the staiths, and did not have time to get out of the way; he was fatally injured and died the next morning.
Two boys, named Matthew Potts and John Kelsay, aged 14 and 16, had apparently stowed away in the horse wagon and were found crushed to death underneath the wagon that had fallen upon it. It was reported that the head of John Kelsay, "...was crushed quite flat, and presented a frightful spectacle."
An inquest was held on Monday 12 December 1836. It lasted all day and a great number of witnesses were examined.
The jury came to the verdict, "We find that Henry Johnston, Matthew Potts and John Kelsay came by their deaths accidentally, by reason of the locomotive steam engine called the Samson, and the carriages by which she was followed, running from the proper line of road, and breaking down a staith at Great Corby, such deviation from the right line being caused by the misplacing of certain points or switches at the west end of Corby-bridge ... This jury cannot separate without expressing its disapprobation of the conduct of the railway company in not placing their own responsible servants at every turn where such switches are placed, or insisting upon Lord Carlisle, and all others having private depots, giving such security for proper attention to the switches leading to such depots as will give the most perfect security attainable in such a mode of travelling to those whose lives are committed to their charge."