Hawes Junction rail crash

The Hawes Junction rail crash occurred on 24 December 1910, between Hawes Junction and Aisgill on the Midland Railway's Settle and Carlisle main line in Westmorland (now Cumbria), England. It was caused when a busy signalman, Alfred Sutton, forgot about a pair of light engines waiting at his down (northbound) starting signal to return to their shed at Carlisle. They were still waiting there when the signalman set the road for the down Scotch express. When the signal cleared, the light engines set off in front of the express into the same block section. Since the light engines were travelling at low speed from a stand at Hawes Junction, and the following express was travelling at high speed, a collision was inevitable. The express caught the light engines just after Moorcock Tunnel near Aisgill summit in Mallerstang and was almost wholly derailed.

Casualties were made worse by the telescoping (over-riding) of the timber-bodied coaches, and by fire which broke out in the coaches, fed by the gas for the coaches' lights leaking from ruptured pipes and ignited by the coals from the locomotives' fireboxes. Twelve people lost their lives as a result of this accident, some of whom were trapped in the wreckage and were burned to death.

Causes

The immediate cause of the accident was that the signalman forgot that he had moved the two light engines to the down line, waiting there to proceed to Carlisle. He later improperly cleared the down line signals without ascertaining that the line was clear.

In the sequence of events as related in L.T.C. Rolt's book Red for Danger,^[1] the driver of another light engine, waiting to return south to Leeds, saw the two northbound light engines move off when the starting signal was cleared. The signal did not return to danger, and the express passed through shortly afterwards. The driver went to the signalbox and related what he had seen. Signalman Sutton refused to believe him until he had checked his train register, and then telephoned the signal box at Aisgill to the north to ask whether the two light engines had gone through. The Aisgill signalman replied that none had been offered to him; nor had the express passed. Sutton then asked Signalman Simpson, who was about to relieve him and had just come into the signal box, to "Go to Bunce [the stationmaster] and tell him I am afraid I have wrecked the Scotch Express".^[1] It is apparent from this account that Sutton had been under the mistaken impression that he had despatched the two light engines to Carlisle some time earlier.

Although the signalman naturally bore the chief blame for the accident, the drivers of the light engines were also at fault for failing to carry out the requirements of Rule 55, which was created to remind signalmen in this situation. Under this rule, the drivers should have sounded their engine whistles on coming to a stop, and when the signal was not cleared, they should have sent one of the firemen to walk to the signal box to remind the signalman personally. In 1910, the time after which this should be done was not specified, but was generally accepted to be two or three minutes. The engines were actually detained for twenty minutes. O.S. Nock, in his book Historic Railway Disasters,^[2] states that ten minutes was allowed, but does not give a source for this.

The two light engine drivers (Scott and Bath) stated that they had sounded their whistles as they moved off, and this was confirmed by the driver of the engine waiting to return to Leeds. The signalman had not been alerted by this, probably because driving rain was being blown against the windows of the signal box, making it hard to hear sounds outside, and because other engines were moving around the station and yard at the same time, so that the signalman would not have attached any particular significance to a train whistle.

Many railways had adopted reminder appliances, simple mechanical collars that the signalmen were required to place on signal levers, as a back-up to prevent improper clearance of signals. The Midland Railway had not adopted these simple devices.

The accident would have been prevented if track circuits had been installed to detect the presence of a train (or in this case the light engines) on the main lines, and interlocking with the signals would have prevented them being cleared by the signalman. Track circuits had been invented in the 1870s and had proved to be very successful; unfortunately most British railway companies were slow to install them. The high level of traffic movements made Hawes Junction a prime location for their installation. The Board of Trade accident report unequivocally recommended this, and the Midland Railway rapidly complied both here and at 900 other locations on their network.

The issue arose of whether the signalman was overworked. The Midland Railway had a policy of using small engines only, and on the steeply-graded Settle and Carlisle line, this required frequent double-heading (two locomotives coupled together to operate a single train) or the use of pilot engines to assist engines in pulling trains up to Aisgill at the summit of the line. Double-heading would not increase the amount of traffic, but pilot engines detached at Aisgill would usually proceed to Hawes Junction where there was a turntable, to be turned and marshalled together to return to their sheds at Carlisle (or Leeds). These light engine movements would naturally increase the total amount of traffic at Hawes Junction, but the Railway Inspectorate report specifically rejected the assertion that overwork was a factor. However, between moving the two light engines onto the down line and accepting the express, the signalman had to deal with two up goods trains and several up light engines, movements which would require all his concentration to avoid delay, and make it easy to forget about the down line.

Railway Inspectorate Report

Since the earliest days of public railways in the UK, railway accidents were investigated by the Railways Inspectorate, an independent body of experts. In the case of the Hawes Junction collision, the investigating officer was Major Pringle.

References

Similar accidents

• Quintinshill rail crash – also involved a signalman forgetting about a train on the main line.
• Thirsk rail crash (1892) – an overtired signalman dozed off and forgot about a train waiting at his signals.
• Winwick rail crash – signalman and booking boy forgot about train on main line.

External links

• Major Pringle's Report
• A Christmas Tragedy – description of the crash on the Danger Ahead historic railway disasters website.
• Mallerstang Section of the Settle-Carlisle line: including a commemoration (and the names) of all those who died during its construction, and in all the subsequent crashes

Coordinates: 54°20′22″N 2°19′33″W / 54.3395°N 2.3258°W / 54.3395; -2.3258