Stratford Collision

[setttt]

I had never heard about this collision until I read the book that contains this article, but it is very similar to the Victoria collision mentioned by Piccadilly Pilot.

From 'Great Train Disasters' by Geoffrey Kichenside.

"On 8 April 1953 at Stratford, on London Transport's Central Line, a trackside train trip arm was damaged by a chain dangling from a train. It's associated signal, and the one behind at Stratford Station, thus remained at 'danger'. From the open-air platforms at Stratford the Central Lines towards Leytonstone ran downhill into tube tunnel, so that drivers went from daylight into the darkness of the tunnel. 'Stop and Proceed' working was thus put into operation at Stratford, trains having to wait one minute at the red signal before moving slowly forward. They were then tripped by the train stop. Next the driver would reset the trip arm and restart slowly down to the tunnel. He would repeat the procedure at the next signal.

Several trains had successfully passed the 'danger' signals using this procedure. The eleventh train had stopped at the signal inside the tunnel, ready to trip passed it, when the twelfth train - having passed the Stratford signal - halted close behind. The front train completed the tripping procedure and moved slowly away. The one behind it was just about to draw up to the signal when the thirteenth train, running down the slope into the tunnel, collided heavily into it's rear, badly damaging coaches of both trains. Twelve passengers were killed and many others were injured.

The driver of the thirteenth train had not operated at the low speed required. But in those days drivers on London Transport lines were not given a practical test of driving at 'caution', and nor did the rules impose a maximum speed. Actual speed for 'caution' was left to the driver's discretion, bearing in mind the pertaining conditions."

[q8]

I am going to search through my library for the report of this accident. More later.

[Tom]

Stratford to Leyton has been the host to no less than four collisions since 1953, all caused by drivers going too fast after applying the rule past signals.

A good friend of mine was involved in the last one in 1984, he was an AET investigating a failure between Stratford and Leyton and the train he was using as his protection was hit from behind by the following train. Another AET was involved in a near miss in almost identical circumstances the year before.

[Harsig]

Tom said:

Stratford to Leyton has been the host to no less than four collisions since 1953, all caused by drivers going too fast after applying the rule past signals.

I think from memory that the 1953 collision was the second of the four accidents, the first being in 1946 only a few days after the line had opened from Liverpool St to Stratford.

[Deleted]

Tom said:

Stratford to Leyton has been the host to no less than four collisions since 1953, all caused by drivers going too fast after applying the rule past signals.

Between Leyton ant the tunnel, you can still see the scrape marks on the wall leading to the westbound tunnel mouth from the 1984 collision.

[Tom]

Harsig said:

I think from memory that the 1953 collision was the second of the four accidents, the first being in 1946 only a few days after the line had opened from Liverpool St to Stratford.

I stand corrected.

[setttt]

Horrific

[ongarparknride]

I was interested in this accident as my father was detrained as a result of the accident - fortunately not travelling in a train involved in it.

The Full Ministry of Transport Report:

Report on the Collision which occurred on 8th April 1953 near Stratford on the Central Line London Transport Executive

(2 Mb file: .pdf)

can be downloaded from the link at:

www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/listing.php?showSearch=true&text=&startYear=all&endYear=all&development=all&category=all&author=all&publisher=all&published=all&submit=Go&event=109


OngarParkNRide

[ongarparknride]

CORRECTION:

The full web link above needs to be "cut and pasted", as the automatic linking has not recognised the full 3 line length of the link.

From that link it is easy to "work back" to research all other similar reports etc. at The Railways Archive.

www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/index.php

cheers,

[MarkP]

If it helps, the actual report is at www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Stratford1953.pdf.

While I'm at it - I've converted the search page to a tiny url for you! tinyurl.com/35sysf

[ongarparknride]

Thank you MarkP. I'm afraid I struggle to ID and copy the links I refer to, and try to test them before hitting send. It's a bit of lack of IT training there, I guess. But I plead good intentions.



Cheers,

[MarkP]

You are welcome, Mr Ongarparknride, hope you didn't think I was interfering. I have found that www.tinyurl.com is also a very useful resource when you get a stupidly long links to post!

[Deleted]

That's very interesting, Ongar. Thanks for the heads-up.

Sam

[Deleted]

tom said:

Stratford to Leyton has been the host to no less than four collisions since 1953, all caused by drivers going too fast after applying the rule past signals.

A good friend of mine was involved in the last one in 1984, he was an AET investigating a failure between Stratford and Leyton and the train he was using as his protection was hit from behind by the following train. Another AET was involved in a near miss in almost identical circumstances the year before.

At what speed could a train that had applied the rule actually achieve?

[towerman]

In theory,before SCAT was fitted,the train could go at line speed once the tripcock had been reset.

[ongarparknride]

Stratford Collisions (1946, 1953, 1979)

On 5 December, 1947, a signal failure on the Central line near Stratford meant that trains running on that section of line had to follow 'stop and proceed' rules, allowing them to continue very slowly past a red light after having waited for a minute. However, an empty train carrying three signalling staff sent to investigate the cause of the signal failure soon crashed into the back of the empty train in front of it at around 10mph, trapping the driver and the signal staff in the cab, with one of the men dying before they could be rescued. The cause of the accident was simply that the driver had not followed the rules.
On the evening of 8 April, 1953, signal failures led to delays on the Central line once more, with drivers again following 'stop and proceed' rules. However, a train heading eastbound towards Epping ploughed into the back of a stationary train waiting in the tunnel between Stratford and Leyton just before 7pm, leaving twelve passengers dead and many wounded. The driver was hurt but survived and was later charged with having ignored the 'stop and proceed' rules by a Public Inquiry.
A third accident occurred just west of Stratford on 24 January, 1979, just after signal failures prompted an investigation on the open-air section of line west of the station. Following the 'stop and proceed' rules, a train containing passengers headed slowly along the westbound line so that a technician on board could look for faults in the wiring. A second passenger train then ran into the back of the first, injuring a handful of passengers. Once more the cause was a lack of caution when proceeding through a red light, and the driver of the second train was rightly given the full blame for the accident.

tinyurl.com/3axry7

[Deleted]

If you cause an accident [by not following procedure etc.] on LU and deaths occur, would you be tried for manslaughter in a court of law? Has anyone actually ever been sent to prison in such circumstances?

[agoodcuppa]

david5032 said:

Has anyone actually ever been sent to prison in such circumstances?

A few, although I think the most recent was the driver of the train at Purley who missed a Stop signal.

news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/4/newsid_2515000/2515219.stm

www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/incident-watfordsouthjunction.pdf

[jamesb]

I was reading about this today. The Central Line has had it's fair share of incidents over the years...

- Stratford collisions 1946, 1953, 1979
- Holland Park fire on train 1958
- Gants Hill fire on train 1960
- Holborn crash 1980
- Chancery lane 2003
- White City 2004
(from www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A17895702)

[towerman]

There were two collisions between Leyton & Stratford about two years apart,one EB,one WB.In the WB collision the driver unfortunately died.I was on nights that night and the train that hit the rear of the train in front returned to Hainault about 4 am being pushed by a battery loco.The car had been cut away to the first pair of doors,all that was left was the sole bar and you could see the first pair of wheels were stained red with blood,not very nice.They actually made a good unit out of the two units involved I believe it ended up as 1732-2542-9543-1543.

[towerman]

There was also a collision at Marble Arch WB involving a train being driven from the rear hitting a train leaving the sdg into the WB platform.That was down to crew error as both the driver & guard were in the rear cab of the train being driven from the rear and were going well above the permitted speed for such a move.

[solidbond]

To clarify on Towerman's above two posts, the two accidents between Leyton and Stratford were in 1979, as detailed above, and then in August 1984. They were both on the Westbound, in almost the same place. I did get some photos of the cars from the 1984 crash in Hainault depot the night after the crash - quite sobering.

As to the Marble Arch crash, in fact the two crew were in the leading cab, but one of them should have been in the rear cab, due to the nature of the defect. As stated, the train was also travelling a lot faster than it should have done with that defect. I also got some long distance photos of the cars involved in that crash, while they were sitting on one of the outside roads at Ruislip depot.

[superteacher]

solidbond said:

As to the Marble Arch crash, in fact the two crew were in the leading cab, but one of them should have been in the rear cab, due to the nature of the defect. As stated, the train was also travelling a lot faster than it should have done with that defect. I also got some long distance photos of the cars involved in that crash, while they were sitting on one of the outside roads at Ruislip depot.

I believe that the train had an air defect, which meant that when they tried to apply the brakes, there weren't any.

[Deleted]

it's quite intresting seeing bits of 1962 stock on the tunnel wall