Abbots Ripton rail disaster
| Date | 21 January 1876 |
|---|---|
| Location | Abbots Ripton |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Rail line | East Coast Main Line |
| Operator | Great Northern Railway |
| Type of incident | Double collision |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 3 |
| Deaths | 13 |
| Injuries | 53 |
The Abbots Ripton rail disaster occurred on 21 January 1876 at Abbots Ripton, then in the county of Huntingdonshire, England, now in Cambridgeshire, on the Great Northern Railway main line, part of the East Coast Main Line, and previously thought to be exemplary for railway safety. In the accident, the Special Scotch Express (known informally to railway workers as 'the Scotchman' although not officially the Flying Scotsman until after 1923) train from Edinburgh to London was involved in a collision, during a blizzard, with a coal train. An express travelling in the other direction then ran into the wreckage. The initial accident was caused by:
Additional factors in the second accident were:
The accident (and the subsequent inquiry into it) led to fundamental changes in British railway signalling practice.
A coal train preceding the Flying Scotsman on the main East Coast up (south-bound) line was normally scheduled to be shunted into a siding at Abbots Ripton to allow the much faster Flying Scotsman to pass. Because of a very bad snowstorm, both the coal train and the Flying Scotsman were running late and the signalman at Holme, the next station north of Abbots Ripton, judged that the coal train needed to go into sidings at Holme if it was not to delay the Flying Scotsman. He therefore set his signal levers to danger so as to stop the coal train, but it continued on the main line until it reached Abbots Ripton, where as expected the signalman waved it on to his box with a hand lamp, and directed it to shunt. The goods train had nearly completed shunting into the Abbots Ripton siding when the Scotch express ran into it at speed. The wreckage obstructed the down (northbound) line and a second collision occurred some minutes later when a northbound express to Leeds crashed into the wreckage. Thirteen passengers died in the collisions, and 53 passengers and 6 traincrew members were injured.
...
Wikipedia