"SHOCKING ACCIDENT ON THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY."

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I had to pop in for a quick look around..would have loved to have stayed longer. Had been researching the LUKE's of Royston.

Grave right:
Arthur South

“SHOCKING ACCIDENT ON THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY.
The night before last, an accident, the circumstances of which, in a minor degree, recall the terrible tragedy at Abergele last year, occurred on the Great Northern Railway. A passenger train which leaves King’s-cross about eleven o’clock p.m. had reached Barnet, which was the limit of its course. It should have been then shunted down to the up line, but owing to a mistake made by the pointsman, it was driven on to the same line by which it had arrived. Meanwhile, on passing the signal-box between Colney-hatch and Barnet, the driver of a goods train from London was told that the line was clear whilst his engine was remaining under the box, and accordingly proceeded on his way. On reaching the passenger train, which, as we have said, had been shunted on to the wrong line, the goods train darted into it with tremendous force. The details of the event are very melancholy. It appears that Arthur South, the guard of the goods train, was in the van in which the gas tank was kept, and when the collision took place the contents of the tank exploded, and the unfortunate man was killed. The driver and stoker of the passenger train were found on the embankment of the railway when the knowledge of the occurrence was conveyed to the officials in the vicinity, and they were forthwith removed to the Royal Free Hospital, which they reached at 5 a.m. yesterday. On inquiring at the hospital last evening, our reporter ascertained that the driver Henry Murfitt, who remains in the institution, has sustained injury to the right hip, and severe contusions of other parts of the body. John Castlesdine, the stoker, who was wounded in the right wrist and cut in the lip, was sufficiently well to be able to leave the hospital yesterday, though the surgeon would have advised him to remain a day or so longer. The reports that spread regarding the amount of damage done seem to be exaggerated. The signalman who told the driver of the goods train that the line was clear, and the two pointsmen, have been suspended from the company’s service.

The following account is supplied by Mr Oakley, the Secretary of the Great Northern Railway:- The 11 p.m. train from London to Barnet arrived at its destination at 11½, and safely unloaded its passengers on Monday night, and in the ordinary course would have returned empty to Southgate, the next station nearest London. Here it usually remains all night, proceeding to London the following morning with passengers. It consisted on this occasion of six or eight carriages, 1st, 2nd and 3rd, two guards or break vans, one in the front and the other in the rear, and the engine and tender. It was preparing to return. The engine had been reversed, i.e. it had been detached from the front of the train, passed down to the up line, from which at some distance it had again returned to the down line, and so reached the tail end of the train, to which it was again attached. The break van at the tail end was that in which the gas supply of light to the several carriages was stored. It was contained in a reservoir, which occupied about two-thirds of the space in the carriage. All being now ready for the train to proceed from the down to the up line by a link which runs diagonally across the six-foot way, the signalman gave the order for the train to start. The signalman is stationed in a signal-house, which is elevated above the buildings of the station at Barnet, and is closely contiguous thereto. It is surmounted by the ordinary telegraph apparatus, and has a communication with the Whetstone signal station which lies between Barnet and Colney-hatch, about a mile – that is nearer to King’s-cross than Barnet. As soon as the signalman had advised the guard of the train to proceed he likewise advised the signalman at Whetstone that the down road was clear, in the one case by word of mouth, by calling out, “Right away!” and in the other by dropping the telegraph arm. The guard thereupon called from his van to the driver, “Go ahead, Harry!” Henry being the Christian name of the driver, and the driver accordingly sounded his whistle and put the train in motion. Neither driver nor guard appears to have noticed that there was no one attending the points through which it was necessary to pass in order to leave the one road and reach the other. The points not being turned, the train of course ran, as soon as put in motion, towards London, on the line upon which it had just come from London. The signalman saw the mistake and was panic-stricken. He shouted at the top of his voice, with a view to a rectification of the error. Whether or not he was heard or his gesticulations perceived in the noise and darkness is not as yet known. It has not yet been learnt whether any attempt was made by reversing the engine or putting on the brakes to stop the train. It was running at a good speed, and had got over a distance of 400 yards or so when the front approaching lights were perceived. These were attached to a goods train, as it afterwards proved, which had been waiting at Whetstone during the operation of shunting at Barnet. One of the purposes, if not the main purpose, of the Whetstone signal station is to detain the trains there in the event of there being any obstruction at Barnet. When the signalman, therefore, received the signal from Barnet that the down line was clear, he permitted the goods train, which by the way was very heavily laden with general merchandise, to proceed. The engine driver and stoker of the “goods”, seeing what must inevitably happen, leaped from the engine, and the next moment the collision took place. At what rate the goods was travelling may be judged by the circumstances of its having run nearly a mile when the shock took place. The effect of the collision was to crush the guard’s van, in which there was the storage of gas. The reservoir was fractured. The gas escaped in volume, came into contact with the blaze which rushed out of the open fore-hole of the engine, and ignition was the instant effect. The guard’s van, and two passenger carriages immediately in its rear, having been torn and crushed to splinters, caught fire, and before assistance could be rendered, were literally consumed. The charred remains of the guard who had occupied the van were picked up, hardly, if at all, recognisable, out of the dying embers, and conveyed to Barnet.

At the inquest at the Railway Hotel, Barnet, John Livingstone, M.D, said he saw the body of the deceased lying on the engine. The body was lying just above the buffers of the engine on the sand-box. The body was very much charred. The head was off and the limbs all separated. The thigh bones only were attached to the body. He could not say positively as to the primary cause of death as the body was a charred mass when he first saw it.”

Footnote: For those of you unfamiliar with railway workings, the ‘up’ line is one that leads towards London, while the ‘down’ line heads away from London. It is interesting that this accident bears similarity to Britain’s worst railway disaster at Quintinshill near Gretna which occurred forty-six years later on 22 May 1915 when trains on the same line collided and the subsequent fire, caused by ruptured gas tanks, led to 230 soldiers being killed and 246 injured.

Printed in
Friern Barnet & District Newsletter
Published by Friern Barnet & District Local History Society
Feb 2016
www.friern-barnethistory.org.uk

My ref: vintage/radial

Taken on: May 11, 2015

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