Clayton Tunnel rail crash
The tunnel's north entrance
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| Date | 25 August 1861 |
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| Time | ~08:45 |
| Location | Clayton, West Sussex |
| Coordinates | 50°54′46″N 0°09′14″W / 50.91278°N 0.15389°WCoordinates: 50°54′46″N 0°09′14″W / 50.91278°N 0.15389°W |
| Country | England |
| Rail line | Brighton Main Line |
| Operator | London Brighton and South Coast Railway |
| Cause | Signal passed at danger/Signalling error |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 2 |
| Passengers | 589 |
| Deaths | 23 |
| Injuries | 176 |
| List of UK rail accidents by year | |
The Clayton Tunnel rail crash, which took place on Sunday 25 August 1861, five miles from Brighton on the south coast of England, was the worst accident of the British railway system to that time. Two trains collided inside the tunnel, killing 23 and injuring 176 passengers.
The disaster scenario actually involved three successive northbound trains on the same track, which all left Brighton station within a few minutes of one another. The signalman at the south end of the tunnel tried to stop the second train from entering the tunnel before the first one had left it, but wrongly thought his red flag had not been seen, and then misinterpreted a telegraph signal from the north end of the tunnel as referring to the second train instead of the first. Assuming that both trains had cleared the tunnel, he signalled the third one to proceed, but in fact the second train was trying to reverse out of the tunnel.
Signalman Henry Killick had an alarm bell linked to a signal, a needle telegraph and a clock in his cabin, close to the south entrance of the tunnel. He could control the signal by a wheel in the cabin, but it would normally be at "danger" unless he approved a train to enter the tunnel. When a train passed, the signal returned automatically to "danger", but if it did not, the alarm bell would ring. The telegraph was linked to the north signal box, and would show there was a train in the tunnel if the signalman at the other box activated it by pressing and holding down a switch. Otherwise the needle would hang vertically.
Except for the Clayton Tunnel, the line was worked on the time-interval system, requiring trains on the same track to be separated by 5 minutes. Despite this, the three trains actually left Brighton within 7 minutes:
At the tunnel mouth, the first train passed the signal at "clear", but the alarm bell rang to warn Killick that it had not returned to "danger". He sent a "train in tunnel" message to Brown in the north cabin, but did not return the signal to "danger" in time to stop the second train from passing the signal and travelling to the tunnel. It was only 3 minutes behind, and may well have caught up with the first train. Realising that the first train was still in the tunnel, he rushed out of the cabin waving his red flag to stop the second train just as it was passing. He could not be sure that the driver had seen the flag, however. He telegraphed Brown "is tunnel clear?"
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Wikipedia