Official Railway Engineering Inspector's Notebook - October 10th 1892 and January 14th 1895 - York to Darlington line - including the Thirsk Rail Crash

Anonymous

Published by 1892 - 1895, 1892

The person in question was presumably somebody working for North Eastern Railway or HM Railway Inspectorate, and seemingly somebody who was heavily involved with safety. If I counted correctly there are 178 individual incidents and inspections recorded, sometimes two in one day, with major collisions covering multiple pages. The date is noted, as is the engine involved, the time of the call out and the time the tool van department became involved, with descriptions of what the inspector witnessed, immediate actions that were taken, as well as notes on the likely causes of the accidents and the people involved. The notebook is bound in brown marbled boards with brown cloth spine, the boards are very worn and there is minor loss, rubbing and fraying to the spine. The pages are toned, slightly grubby and marked, some pages are loose or detached. The first significant incident included in the notebook is the Thirsk Rail Crash at the Manor House Signal Box on 2nd November 1892, in which nine passengers and a guard were killed. The accident happened primarily because the signalman, James Holmes had fallen asleep due to exhaustion, having been awake for 36 hours because his daughter had died the day before, further compounded by thick fog which prevented Holmes from seeing a goods train already on the track, when he gave the "line clear" signal for a passenger express train approaching at 60mph. Thirsk covers three pages and the author was early on the scene shortly after hot coals had set the wreck on fire: "the foreman platelayer ran up asking us to be quick with the Hy'c jacks to get two bodies from underneath the Pullman Car before the fire should reach them, with great promptitude & in less than 15 mins we got out the mangled remains of 2 men. The tremendous violence of the collision was apparent from the manner in which the remains of the train were scattered all over the line". On Nov 6th the wreckage from the Thirsk accident was cleared, the notebook providing details which show that injuries continued to be suffered after the collision: "about 60 wagons loaded before dark. One man had his hand badly crushed by the steam crane, another with chain hook.". The other major incident covered is the Northallerton, Castle Hills Junction accident on October 4th 1894, in which the driver of one train was killed and 24 people were injured, again with a return some days later to clear the debris. Most of the rest of the incidents are minor derailments, which are alarmingly frequent, and more concerned with damage to the railway than fatalities: "the above van ran off the rails with all wheels breaking 23 chairs" ("chairs" in this context referring to a part of the rail fastening system). There is an equine casualty on Nov 11th 1893: "385 Engine The above engine working York to Pickering passenger train when approaching Ampleforth Station, a man in charge of 2 horses & cart laden with straw attempted to cross the line in front of the coming train. The eng caught the leading horse cutting it in two parts and throwing the leading bogie wheels off the line, several chairs and sleepers were broken.". A fascinating insight into railway safety and procedure in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The numerous minor incidents are perhaps of more interest than the major accidents, which are already well documented. Although the first hand account of Thirsk is visceral emotional reading and seems not to have made it into the available records of the tragedy. Seller Inventory # 5922

Bibliographic Details

Title: Official Railway Engineering Inspector's ...
Publisher: 1892 - 1895
Publication Date: 1892
Signed: Signed by Author(s)