Staplehurst rail crash

Staplehurst rail crash
Date 9 June 1865
Time 3:13 pm
Location Staplehurst, Kent
Country England
Rail line South Eastern Main Line
Operator South Eastern Railway
Cause Engineering possession error
Statistics
Trains 1
Deaths 10
Injuries 40
List of UK rail accidents by year

The Staplehurst rail crash was a derailment at Staplehurst, Kent on 9 June 1865 at 3:13 pm. The South Eastern Railway Folkestone to London boat train derailed while crossing a viaduct where a length of track had been removed during engineering works, killing ten passengers and injuring forty. In the Board of Trade report it was found that a man had been placed with a red flag 554 yards (507 m) away but the regulations required him to be 1,000 yards (910 m) away and the train had insufficient time to stop.

Charles Dickens was travelling with Ellen Ternan and her mother on the train; they all survived the derailment. He tended the victims, some of whom died while he was with them. The experience affected Dickens greatly; he lost his voice for two weeks and afterwards was nervous when travelling by train, using alternative means when available. Dickens died five years to the day after the accident; his son said that he had never fully recovered.

Derailment

On 9 June 1865 the daily boat train to London left Folkestone between 2:36 pm and 2:39 pm, having taken on board passengers from the tidal cross-channel ferry from France.[1] Tender locomotive No. 199 hauled the train,[2] comprising a brake van, a second class carriage, seven first class carriages, two-second class carriages and three brake vans carrying eighty first class and thirty-five-second class passengers. Three of the brake vans contained a guard and these were able to communicate with the driver using a whistle on the engine. Just after the train passed Headcorn railway station at 45–50 miles per hour (72–80 km/h), the driver saw a red flag. He whistled for the brakes and reversed his engine, but the locomotive and brakesmen were unable to stop the train before it derailed at 3:13 pm crossing the Beult viaduct, where a length of track had been removed during engineering works.[1]

The 10-foot (3.0 m) high viaduct, with eight openings each 21 feet (6.4 m) wide, crossed over a mostly dry river bed at the time of the accident. The locomotive, tender, van and second class carriage made it across and remained coupled to the first class carriage, the other end of which rested in the dry river bed. The next seven carriages ended up in the muddy river bed and the last second class carriage remained coupled to the trailing vans, the last two of which remained on the eastern bank. There were ten fatalities and forty people injured; seven carriages were destroyed, either in the derailment or when rescuing passengers.[3]

The Board of Trade report, published on 21 June 1865, found that for the previous eight to ten weeks a team of eight men and a foreman had been renewing the timbers under the track on viaducts between Headcorn and Staplehurst railway stations. The track would be removed when no train was due; however, on 9 June the foreman had misread his timetable as to the schedule that day of the tidal boat train.[4] Regulations required a man with a red flag to be 1,000 yards (910 m) away, but the labourer was only 554 yards (507 m) away, having counted telegraph poles that were unusually close together,[5] and the train had insufficient time to stop. There had also been no notification to the driver about the track repairs in the area.[6]

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was with his mistress Ellen Ternan and her mother, Frances Ternan, in the first class carriage, which did not completely fall into the river bed and survived the derailment. He climbed out of the compartment through the window, rescued the Ternans and, with his flask of brandy and his hat full of water, tended to the victims, some of whom died while he was with them. Before he left with other survivors in an emergency train to London, he retrieved the manuscript of the episode of Our Mutual Friend that he was working on.[7] The directors of the South Eastern Railway presented Dickens with a piece of plate as a token of their appreciation for his assistance in the aftermath of the accident.[8] The experience affected Dickens greatly; he lost his voice for two weeks and he was two and a half pages short for the sixteenth episode, published in August 1865.[7] Dickens acknowledged the incident in the novel's postscript:

On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving Mr and Mrs Lammle at breakfast) were on the South-Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back into my carriage — nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon the turn — to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. [...] I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever than I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed this book: — THE END.

Afterwards Dickens was nervous when travelling by train, using alternative means when available.[7] He died five years to the day after the accident; his son said that 'he had never fully recovered'.[7]

In fiction

The accident is used as part of the plot in R.F. Delderfield's Swann saga novel, God is an Englishman. It forms the starting point of Drood, a novel by Dan Simmons, published in February 2009.[9] It is also depicted in the 2013 film, The Invisible Woman.[10]

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 Rich 1865, pp. 42–43.
  2. ↑ Earnshaw 1991, p. 4.
  3. ↑ Rich 1865, p. 43.
  4. ↑ Rich 1865, p. 41.
  5. ↑ Kitchenside, Geoffrey (1997). Great Train Disasters. Parragon Plus. p. 18. ISBN 978-0752526300.
  6. ↑ Rich 1865, p. 42.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "The Staplehurst Disaster". University of California: Santa Cruz. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
  8. ↑ Kidner 1977, pp. 48-49.
  9. ↑ Review of Drood by Andrew Taylor in The Independent Friday 13 March 2009
  10. ↑ Review of The Invisible Woman The Globe and Mail Friday, Jan. 17 2014

Sources

Further reading

Coordinates: 51°10′9″N 0°34′49″E / 51.16917°N 0.58028°E / 51.16917; 0.58028

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