Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash


View of the platforms from the north after the crash

Details
Date: 8 October 1952; 8:19 a.m.
Cause: Signal passed at danger
Statistics
Trains: 3
Deaths: 112
Injured: 340

The Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash was a three-train collision at Harrow and Wealdstone station in Wealdstone, Middlesex (now Greater London) during the morning rush hour of 8 October 1952. The crash resulted in 112 deaths and 340 injuries, 88 of these being detained in hospital. It remains the worst peacetime rail crash in British history and the second deadliest overall after the Quintinshill rail disaster of 1915.

An overnight express train from Perth crashed into the rear of a local passenger train standing at a platform at the station. The wreckage blocked adjacent lines and was struck within seconds by a "double-headed" express train travelling north at 60 mph (100 km/h). The Ministry of Transport report on the crash found that the driver of the Perth train had passed a caution signal and two danger signals before colliding with the local train. The reason for this was never established, as both the driver and the fireman of the Perth train were killed in the accident.

The accident accelerated the introduction of the Automatic Warning System, and British Railways agreed to a five-year plan to install the system to give drivers an in-cab audible and visual warning when nearing a signal at caution, actuated by magnets between the rails.

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Collision

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Sequence of events

On 8 October 1952, at around 8:17 a.m., the local train stopped at platform 4 at Harrow and Wealdstone station, approximately seven minutes late because of fog. Carrying about 800 passengers, it was busier than usual because the next Tring-Euston service had been cancelled. As scheduled, it had travelled from Tring on the slow line, switching to the up fast line just before Harrow and Wealdstone to keep the slow lines to the south of the station clear for empty stock movements. At 8:19 a.m, just as the guard was walking back to his brake van after checking doors on the last two carriages, the Perth express crashed into the rear of the local at a speed of 50–60 miles per hour (80–100 km/h). It had passed a colour light signal at caution and two semaphore signals at danger, and had burst through the trailing points of the crossover from the slow lines, which were still set for the local train. The collision drove the entire local train forward 20 yards (18 m), and completely destroyed the rear three coaches, telescoping all three into the length of little more than one coach; shattering the wooden bodies of the last two and crushing the steel body of the next to a third of its length. The leading two vans and three coaches of the Perth train piled up behind and above the locomotive.


One of the overturned locomotives of the Liverpool train, No. 46202 Princess Anne

The wreckage from the first collision was spread across the adjacent down fast line. A few seconds after the first collision, the northbound express to Liverpool Lime Street passed through the station on this line in the opposite direction at approximately 60 miles per hour (100 km/h). The leading locomotive of this train struck the derailed locomotive of the Perth train, which may still have been moving, and was itself derailed. The two locomotives from the Liverpool train were deflected left, mounting the platform, which they ploughed across diagonally before landing on their side on the adjacent DC electric line, one line of which was short circuited by the wreckage; the other line had its electric current quickly switched off by the signalman, thus preventing any further collisions. The leading seven coaches, plus a kitchen car from the Liverpool train, were carried forward by momentum, overriding the existing wreckage and piling up above and around it. Several of these coaches struck the underside of the station footbridge, tearing away a steel girder.

Sixteen vehicles, including thirteen coaches, two bogie vans and a kitchen car were destroyed or severely damaged in the collisions. Thirteen of these were compressed into a compact heap of wreckage 45 yards (41 m) long, 18 yards (16 m) wide and 6 yards (5.5 m) high. The Perth locomotive was completely buried under the pile of wreckage.

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