Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash
View of the platforms from the north after the crash
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| Date | 8 October 1952 |
|---|---|
| Time | 8:19 am |
| Location | Harrow and Wealdstone |
| Country | England |
| Rail line | West Coast Main Line |
| Operator | British Railways - London Midland Region |
| Cause | Signal passed at danger |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 3 |
| Deaths | 112 |
| Injuries | 340 |
| List of UK rail accidents by year | |
The Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash was a three-train collision at Harrow and Wealdstone station in London during the morning rush hour of 8 October 1952. 112 people were killed and 340 injured (88 of these being detained in hospital); it remains the worst peacetime rail crash in the United Kingdom.
An overnight express train from Perth crashed at speed into the rear of a local passenger train standing at a platform at the station. The wreckage blocked adjacent lines and was struck within seconds by a "double-headed" express train travelling north at 60 mph (97 km/h). A subsequent Ministry of Transport report on the crash found that the driver of the Perth train had passed a caution signal and two danger signals before colliding with the local train. The reason for this was never established, as both the driver and the fireman of the Perth train were killed in the accident.
The accident accelerated the introduction of Automatic Warning System – by the time the report had been published British Railways had agreed to a five-year plan to install the system that warned drivers that they had passed an adverse signal.
There are three pairs of running lines through Harrow and Wealdstone station, from east to west these are the slow lines, the fast lines of the West Coast Main Line, and the DC electric lines. In each case the "up" line is southbound towards London Euston, the "down" is northbound towards Watford and Birmingham.
The collisions involved three trains:
On 8 October 1952, at around 8:17 am, the local train stopped at platform 4 at Harrow and Wealdstone station, approximately seven minutes late because of fog. Carrying about 800 passengers, it was busier than usual because the next Tring-Euston service had been cancelled. As scheduled, it had traveled from Tring on the slow line, switching to the up fast line just before Harrow and Wealdstone to keep the slow lines to the south of the station clear for empty stock movements. At 8:19 am, just as the guard was walking back to his brake van after checking doors on the last two carriages, the Perth express crashed into the rear of the local at a speed of 50–60 miles per hour (80–100 km/h). It had passed a colour light signal at caution and two semaphore signals at danger, and had burst through the trailing points of the crossover from the slow lines, which were still set for the local train. The collision completely destroyed the three wooden bodied coaches at the rear of the local train (where most of the casualties occurred), telescoping them into the length of one coach, and drove the entire train forward 20 yards (18 m). The leading two vans and three coaches of the Perth train piled up behind and above the locomotive.
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