book list
*James Alan Bousfield Hamilton's book British Railway Accidents of the Twentieth Century was first published in 1967 by George Allen & Unwin. The book included a chapter on the accidents at Welwyn Garden City in 1935 and 1957. The book was reprinted in 1987 under the title Disaster Down the Line: Train Accidents of the 20th Century by Javelin Books. Meanwhile, in 1981, a new book called Trains to nowhere : British Steam Train Accidents 1906-1960 was published by George Allen & Unwin. This was a revised adaptation of Hamilton's original 1967 book by Malcolm Gerard, and contained all but 4 chapters of the original, one of those missed out being the one on Welwyn Garden City. In 1984 a sequel to Trains to Nowhere called Rails to Disaster - More British Steam Train Accidents 1906-1957, by Hamilton/Gerard, was published by George Allen & Unwin. It was based on the 4 missing chapters, plus new material prepared by Gerard on 12 more train accidents. The copy which I have is a Book Club Associates facsimile edition printed in the same year (1984).
The accidents covered in this book are:
The chapter on the two Welwyn Garden City accidents is 9 pages long and includes 6 black and white photographs, 3 from the scene of each accident. There is a certain amount of railway jargon in the description and I found it took me a time to fathom out what actually happened. The summary below is my interpretation of what is in the book - I hope I haven't got anything wrong.
The 1935 accident
The accident happened around 11.27 pm on Saturday, 15th June 1935, at the north end of the platforms of Welwyn Garden City station. A non-stopping London to Leeds newspaper express (no 826) which had 11 coaches of which 3 contained passengers - 57 in all, ran into the back of a non-stopping King's Cross to Newcastle train (no 825A) containing 280 passengers. Fourteen passengers were killed in the accident and a number seriously injured. The text does not state how many deaths occurred on each train, or how many coaches there were in the Newcastle train.
The Welwyn Garden City signal box was being operated by a man called Howes who got the blame for the accident in the Inspector's report. The prior box which the trains had passed was Hatfield No. 3 box, which was operated by a man called Crowe.
At the time of the collision, two things had distracted Howes. First, he was telephoned by a porter about a parcel left on a train by a passenger; he should have put this trivial matter to one side, but instead made a call to Hatfield station to pass on the message. Second, he had to deal with signals for another train on the Hertford branch going in the opposite direction.
The 10.45 King's Cross to Newcastle service was being run in 2 parts. The first part (train no 825) started at the scheduled time. The second part (train no 825A), which was to take a different route via Sunderland, started at 10.53. The 10.50 Leeds train (no 826) departed at 10.58. So there were three trains hurtling northwards at high speed. The first one (825) got through safely. The second (825A) was run into by the third one (826).
Train 825 went through both boxes normally and Howes sent back to Crowe at 11.20 telling him his section of track was clear for the next train. However, Howes failed to clear the distant signals when he should have done, possibly due to the distractions mentioned above. Crowe now offered train 825A to Howes, who accepted it. Crowe signalled the train through Hatfield and sent 'Train in your section' to Howes at 11.22 (I am leaving out the railway jargon and expressing it in plain English).
Immediately after this, Crowe offered the next train (826) to Howes, expecting to have to wait a while before Howes could accept it. However, Howes immediately sent 'Train out of section' to Crowe. Crowe thought something wasn't right because there had not been enough time for 825A to cover the distance. He spoke to Howes by telephone and said 'Is that out, Fred ?' to which Howes replied 'Yes'. Crowe then signalled 826 onwards, saw it pass his box at 11.26, and sent 'Train entering your section' to Howes.
Howes had apparently got in a muddle. When he sent 'Train out of section' to Crowe he was thinking of 825, but he had already cleared that one at 11.20. In fact, he had allowed a train onto his section when it was still occupied.
Meanwhile, the driver of 825A, now approaching WGC station, saw the distant lights at caution, and, assuming he was coming up too close to the 825 train, applied the breaks reducing speed to about 15 mph. Tardily, Howes cleared the distant signals ready for 825A. Spotting this, the driver of 825A rolled forwards for a while (thinking he needed to give time for 825 to pull away from him). No sooner had he put on steam, he felt a violent impact as 826 crashed into his rear.
The driver of 826 had seen the rear lights of 825A and braked, but the net speed on collision was still 50 mph. The locomotive of the Leeds train 826 ploughed through the rear carriage of 825A, but 826 stayed on the tracks. The book explains that on both trains some carriages were telescoped while others were intact, the reason being that the latter had the newer and safer buck-eye couplings and shock absorbing buffers. Some carriages on both trains had older couplings.
Following the accident, procedures were changed and a new system known as 'Welwyn control' was widely adopted. Under this system, once 'Line clear' has been sent, it cannot be sent again until the track circuit has been occupied and then cleared.
click on the images for a better view
The picture above shows the northern extremities of the platforms at Welwyn Garden City, and the signal box in which Howes was working. The outer 2 lines are the Luton branch (extreme left) and the Hertford branch (extreme right). Of the 4 central lines which run between the platforms, the middle 2 are the fast lines for non-stopping trains. Both trains were on the second from the left of these travelling north (upwards in the picture). The front train (825A) is out of shot to the top of the picture. The crane is working on carriage 8 of train 826, with carriage 7 just in front of it. The damaged carriages forward of these two have been moved across to the right to clear the line.
The above picture shows carriage 7 of train 826, with the signal box just behind.
The 1957 accident
On the morning of 7th January 1957, an eleven-coach express train from Aberdeen heading towards London ran into the back of the 6.18 Baldock to King's Cross six-coach local train. One person was killed and several others were seriously injured.
The local train was 11 minutes late, and after leaving the platform at Welwyn Garden City was directed on to the fast line by the crossover just south of the station to proceed to its next stop which was Finsbury Park. It had travelled about half a mile and accelerated to 30 mph, when it was run into from behind by the Aberdeen express which was travelling at 60 mph.
The Inspector laid the blame for the accident on the driver of the Aberdeen Express who, after going through Welwyn North station, had passed a distant signal at danger and a further 4 signals also at danger before the collision happened. The Inspector was unable to explain the lapse on the part of the driver. His fireman should also have been looking for signals. It was in early morning light and conditions were misty.
The picture below shows the Aberdeen Express locomotive on its side. 6 of the 7 carriages in the picture are derailed; the other 4 carriages not in the picture have already been rolled away. The presence of buck-eye couplings helped hold the train together and limited the damage and injuries. In the local train (out of shot to the right), the hindmost carriage was wrecked and the one death and most of the injuries occurred here.
click on the images for a better view