Lindal Railway Incident

The Lindal railway incident happened on Thursday 22 September 1892 near Lindal-in-Furness, a village lying between the Cumbrian towns of Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness. The loco involved still lies buried beneath the railway, though the depth remains a source of speculation.

The story

East of Lindal station on the Barrow-Carnforth route, the two main lines and two goods lines ran along an embankment, with five sidings to the north. The 7am Barrow-Carnforth goods had stopped at the sidings behind Furness Railway loco No.115, a D1 class 0-6-0 built by the firm of Sharp Stewart between 1866 and 1885. The ‘Sharpie’ (as the class were nicknamed) was busy shunting when the driver, Thomas Postlethwaite, saw cracks opening up in the ground right below. Knocking off steam, he jumped for his life, no sooner clear than the earth opened up to expose a sheer-sided hole 30 ft across and similar in depth. The driver and his fireman stared in disbelief as their loco fell into it front first, the funnel and front part embedded, with only the tender remaining visible above the surface. The rails on which the engine had been standing were snapped off and went down with it, while the supporting baulks under the main lines were laid bare. The adjacent up passenger line was left hanging lopsidedly, its ballast having cascaded into the abyss.

Rescue attempts

Breakdown gangs from the loco and Permanent way departments attended with a crane and tool vans. The tender was uncoupled and pulled clear, but the loco itself weighed 35 tons and getting it out would be a massive task. The hole had appeared just 45 minutes before a Barrow-Carnforth passenger was due, and rumours soon went round that a whole passenger train had been swallowed up and scores of people had been killed and injured. People flocked to look, but were kept from going too close by railway staff and police.

At 2:30 PM, the men took a break for refreshments and had not been clear long when the hole suddenly deepened to about 60 feet – the loco falling further still until the earth closed over it and eclipsed it from sight. Witnesses were awestruck to see the huge machine disappear so quickly from their sight, falling to an unknown depth and obviously beyond recovery. The hole was even wider by then, with all eight tracks now twisted and bent, the ballast having fallen away, the sidings over which they’d been able to take empty coaches was now totally unsafe.

Passengers on the 2.57 from Carnforth were forced to abandon the train and had to walk down the adjacent road to Lindal Station, where another train took them on to Barrow. Thirteen conveyances were chartered, including large brakes, buses and horse-drawn carts for their luggage.

Trainloads of ballast continued to arrive and though most thought the worst had been seen, the full extent of the subsidence could only be guessed at and no one yet knew when rails might start to be safely relaid. The uppermost level of the mine workings were 500 feet down and No. 115 was considered to be lost forever. Others said it was only 80–90 feet down, but it was anyone’s guess.

The hole eventually swallowed up around 300 wagon loads of ballast until a solid foundation was established. A Board of Trade inquiry was held under the auspices of Major-General C.S Hutchinson, veteran of numerous rail accidents including the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. Lindal may not have been a tragedy, but was a fascinating case all the same.^[1]

Disruption

Immediately after the first collapse, train passengers were forced to alight from their trains and walk around the crater to the far side. The empty carriages were then taken slowly over the dubious tracks, passengers resettling themselves once their train was back on solid ground. Passengers were eager to see the hole and crowded round to get a good look while officials tried to hurry them along. Goods and mineral traffic were a major source of revenue, so keeping them running was vital. Coke for the ironworks at Barrow, Askam and Millom, normally came via Carnforth and Lindal, but with the whole line at a standstill and Carnforth yard blocked with stalled goods trains, coke trains had to be redirected via Penrith and Whitehaven, an extra 100 miles, the same route being used for livestock, perishables and goods traffic for the Belfast boats. Up Barrow to Carnforth workings were also disrupted and again redirected round the Penrith route. Great efforts were made to get southbound trains away as quickly as possible, so as not to miss connections at Carnforth. Removing all the mails from Thursday evening’s 7.45 p.m. and 9.00 p.m. from Barrow was a long-winded affair, but all the bags were transferred to the onward train, and so efficiently that it caught the Night Mail at Carnforth. Friday morning’s mail was similarly dealt with, done and dusted within an hour.

Explanations

The embankment was encircled by a tell-tale pattern of dips and hollows indicating a history of subsidence. Shaky ground had already caused concerns, requiring trains to be ‘slowed’ before crossing a nearby bridge. Extra ballasting had been necessary and the two main lines, as well as having normal crossways sleepers also rested on longitudinal baulks of timber. A field below the embankment had a 70 ft by 30 ft hollow nearly ten feet deep, and a nearby farmhouse had been abandoned because of subsidence. There were two levels of mine workings beneath the railway. The uppermost had not been used for some time, but miners in the lower level claimed they could hear trains above their heads and had already predicted a “big spill” someday.

Further subsidence

Further subsidence was reported in November 1893, the line sinking by six feet very close to the 1892 subsidence. Traffic was again brought to a halt and worked single line until the problem was solved. Lancashire MP Colonel Thomas Sandys wrote to the Board of Trade with his thoughts, suggesting the mines be filled in or a bridge be built to span the unsafe ground altogether,.^[2] The Board of Trade did indeed keep a watch on the Furness Railway for years afterwards, though directors were worried about adverse publicity.^[3]

Alternative explanation

It has been long accepted that the loss of No.115 was due to mining subsidence, but insights into geology and engineering suggest alternative answers – mainly that the catastrophe had more to do with the area’s geological peculiarities and that the 0-6-0 did not plummet into a mine shaft but into a cavity caused by the collapse of an underlying wash-hole or a sink-hole. of which the Furness area has many, mostly formed in the Ice Age. Where an underground water course washes out the sand it leaves a void, actions exacerbated and speeded up by any heavy rainfall, much of which was recorded around that time. True mining subsidence would have involved catastrophe within the mine itself and the Mines Inspectorate reported none, a further indication that the railway had collapsed into some cavity located some way above the mine workings themselves – i.e. a sink hole. The crater that No.115 fell into was recorded as being sixty feet deep, whereas the mine galleries themselves were less than ten feet in height – so subsidence caused by a mine collapse could only have a corresponding depth of around ten feet.

Today

No.115 is officially regarded as ‘preserved’, but recovery is a source of speculation. It may not lay as deep as long thought. Many believe that the loco is not far down, probably lying within the confines of the embankment. The incident is also the inspiration for Down the Mine, one of the Rev. W. Awdry's railway tales published in 1953.^[4]

In popular culture

The event provided the inspiration for the Arthur Conan Doyle story, "The Lost Special", and, directly and indirectly, the TV serial Lost.

References

• Railway Review. 1892–1893.  Missing or empty |title= (help)
• The Barrow News. September–October 1892.  Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Railway Magazine. 2013.  Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Gordon, W. McGowan (1946). The Furness Railway. London. p. 42. 
• Awdry, Rev. W (1953). Gordon the Big Engine. Railway Series.