- Charfield railway disaster
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Charfield railway disaster Date and time 13 October 1928 : 0520 Location Charfield, Gloucestershire Coordinates 51°37′43″N 2°24′02″W / 51.6287°N 2.4005°WCoordinates: 51°37′43″N 2°24′02″W / 51.6287°N 2.4005°W Rail line Bristol and Gloucester Railway Cause Signal passed at danger Trains 3 Passengers 60 Deaths 16 Injuries 41 List of UK rail accidents by year
List of UK rail accidents by death tollThe Charfield railway disaster was a fatal train crash which occurred on 13 October 1928 in the village of Charfield in the English county of Gloucestershire.
The Leeds to Bristol LMS night mail train failed to stop at the signals protecting the sidings at Charfield railway station. The weather was misty, but there was not a sufficiently thick fog for the signalman at Charfield to employ fog signallers. A freight train was in the process of being shunted from the main line to the sidings, and another train of empty goods waggons was passing through the station from the Bristol direction. The mail train collided with the freight train and was derailed, coming into collision with the up train underneath the road bridge to the north of the station. Gas used to light the carriages ignited, and four carriages were burnt out. Intense fire made identification of the dead, and even a complete body count, difficult, but it is believed that 15 people died and a further 23 were injured.[1] (The official report lists 16 deaths and 41 injuries). The driver of the mail train claimed that he had seen a clear distant signal on approach to the station, and therefore had assumed that the home signals protecting the station were also clear; however, testing of the signals after the accident confirmed that the distant had been correctly in the "danger" position. The driver was charged with manslaughter, but was subsequently acquitted.
Among the dead were the remains of two small children, who have never been identified. According to local accounts, from 1929 and up until the late 1950s, an unknown woman dressed in black used to regularly visit the memorial to the crash. But she has not been seen for several decades. There is a memorial to remember those who lost their lives at St James Church in Charfield, where the two unknown children are buried.[1]
External links
- Charfield Railway Disaster
- Account of 1928 disaster
- Railway Guard, victim of 1928 crash
- The Railways Archive summary of this accident
- See Backtrack 1990 Volume 4 Number 1 Letter.46 two views-on the 2 unknowns-one is that they were two survivors and another October 10, 1999 Volume 13 Number 10 is that the two unknowns were identifiable remains in two small boxes at [1]
- Two survivors of the 1928 Railroad crash
References
- ^ a b "Mystery of train death children". BBC. 2008-10-13. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/7667017.stm. Retrieved 2008-10-14.
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