On New Year's Day 1946 Lichfield Trent Valley station in Staffordshire, England was the site of a rail crash in which 20 people were killed. The disaster was caused by a points failure which routed the 14:50 fish express from Fleetwood to London Broad Street consisting of seven four-wheel fish vans and a brake van hauled by a Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 travelling at over 55 mph into the back of a four-car passenger train which was waiting at the station on the passing loop. The passenger train consisted of old wooden-bodied coaches dating from 1912, and the rear 3 coaches were virtually demolished and the engine (a LNWR Prince of Wales Class 4-6-0) was hurled forwards 90 yards.[1]
The points failure was caused by the extremely cold weather that day freezing the point mechanisms. When the signalman had accepted the fish train from the previous signalbox to the North, he needed to swing the facing points (that allowed entry into the Up Platform Loop from the Up line) from reverse to normal. When he pushed the lever back into the frame he was able to engage the point lock and thus clear the signal. Unbeknown to him, the point rods had actually bent due to the mechanisms freezing up, which allowed him to place the point lever in the normal position, but actually left the points in reverse. The fish train driver would have had no chance of knowing what has happened until his train lurched into the loop at high speed, as he would have received green signals. This accident is one of the very rare occasions where mechanical interlocking has failed to work correctly.
Sources
- ↑ British Railway Disasters published by Ian Allan in 1996
External links
Railway accidents in 1946 (1946) |
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1945   1947 |
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