WW2 locomotive building.

I'm sure commuters would have 'their' compartments too!

 

You've only to watch old film of commuter trains arriving at the likes of Waterloo and Liverpool St to realise that the train was generally empty before it had stopped
For example:

 

Just very glad that I haven't had to do commuting!

 

Oddly enough today I witnessed a passenger holding an outward opening door open as a train arrived at a station whilst looking at the opposite direction to the one the train was travelling. The Foreman Porter, quite rightly, was not amused!

PH

 

No power reverser. The GSWR men had got used to it. And also poor ergonomics - you couldn't reach the brake while looking out of the window to see the shunter, or something like that.

 

'thought to be' is right. It's no more than a armchair theory. If that was the case you'd expect to find the tender brake hard on, for example. And some sign from the crew when they tried to apply the brakes and didn't have any - which would have been well before they passed through Grantham station. At least one witness thought steam was actually shut off and the brakes applied as they went through the station - that fits in with them not realising where they were / falling asleep and being alerted by the station itself.

It would be a better theory for Salisbury - it would explain why the driver kept the whistle open as he approached the station - he was trying to tell people he couldn't slow down on the falling gradient with no brakes.

 

One accident I can think of that was directly caused by incorrect coupling procedures when a locomotive was attached to a train was Littlehampton, 1920, in which mistakes were made connecting the air brake pipes inadvertently to the air pipes that controlled the push-pull apparatus. However, haste was not at the root of that accident, but rather because the procedure was carried out by an inexperienced man, and then not checked by anyone else. The train stood for 20 minutes after coupling before departing, during which time there was ample opportunity to correct the mistake had anyone looked closely.

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Littlehampton1920.pdf

Tom

 

A bit more than an "armchair theory" I think but no-one will ever know for certain. It would be in the interest of a number of people for the cause to remain a "mystery".

PH

 

I'm intrigued! In whose interests would it be that the cause of a railway accident 110 years ago remains a mystery?

 

The railway company at the time it happened of course. Also the individuals whose actions/inactions were the direct cause if the theory is correct.

PH

 

Oddly enough, fairly recently I did see a guard about to despatch a train without doing a brake test when he remembered his omission just in time. There had been some out of course problems that morning which is just the sort of situation when errors get made. Happily the vacuum had been properly connected!

PH

 

How long before I get a cold call recorded message "Good morning, I understand you had a great great uncle who was killed in an accident at Grantham in 1906. Are you aware that you might be entitled to compensation.... "

 

yep =used to see it running light on the up local - never saw it going the other way which with hindsight was a bit odd . perhaps it was off to Camden to find a biggun