Railway Accidents

Description

Britain's rail network is now among the safest in the world, but the journey that brought it to that point has been long and eventful. Early incidents like the felling of William Huskisson MP by Stephenson's Rocket (1830) showed how new ideas could bring new dangers; yet from disaster came new safety measures, and within fifty years better signalling and braking methods had been made mandatory. The twentieth century saw accident repeatedly lead to action and further advances in rolling stock, track design and train protection systems. Greg Morse charts these changes through the events that helped to prompt them, including the Armagh collision (1889) and the Harrow & Wealdstone disaster (1952). He ends with a railway approaching a new 'golden age' in the 1980s - yet with the tragedy at Clapham Junction (1988) offering a solemn reminder against complacency.

Greg Morse was instilled with a love of trains at an early age and has written many articles on railway history. He is privileged to work within the industry he loves as an Operational Safety Specialist.

"The gruesome subject of train crashes never ceases to fascinate and it is important that publishers continue to keep the topic in the public eye in order to educate new readers into the importance of maintaining a safe railway. Greg Morse is a rail industry professional who will be well known to RM readers as a writer of safety-related articles and in this small but informative book, he provides a brief overview of some of the worst crashes in British history." --The Railway Magazine