Armagh rail disaster
Encyclopedia
The Armagh rail disaster happened on 12 June 1889 near Armagh
Armagh
Armagh is a large settlement in Northern Ireland, and the county town of County Armagh. It is a site of historical importance for both Celtic paganism and Christianity and is the seat, for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, of the Archbishop of Armagh...

, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 when a crowded Sunday school
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...

 excursion train
Excursion train
An excursion train is a chartered train run for a special event or purpose.Examples of excursion trains:* A train to a major sporting event* A train run for railfans or tourism...

 had to negotiate a steep incline; the steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...

 was unable to complete the climb and the train stalled. The train crew decided to divide the train and take forward the front portion, leaving the rear portion on the running line. The rear portion was inadequately braked and ran back down the gradient, colliding with a following train. Eighty people were killed and 260 injured, about a third of them children. To this day, it remains the fourth worst railway accident in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

.

At the time it was the worst rail disaster in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and led directly to various safety measures becoming legal requirements for railways in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

. This was important both for the measures introduced and for the move away from voluntarism and towards more direct State intervention in such matters.

Circumstances of the accident.

The excursion sets out

Armagh Sunday school had organized a day trip
Day Trip
Day Trip is the studio album of jazz guitarist Pat Metheny along with Christian McBride and Antonio Sanchez.It was released by Nonesuch Records on January 29, 2008.-Track listing:-Personnel:* Pat Metheny - Guitar* Christian McBride - Bass...

 to the seaside resort of Warrenpoint
Warrenpoint
Warrenpoint is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough and is separated from the Republic of Ireland by a narrow strait. The town sprang up within the townland of Ringmackilroy...

, a distance of about 24 miles. A special train was arranged for the journey, intended to carry about eight hundred passengers.
The railway route is steeply graded and curved, and the first two and a half miles from Armagh station
Armagh railway station
Armagh railway station was a railway station that served Armagh in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.-Development:The Ulster Railway opened Armagh station in 1848, linking the city with Belfast...

 involved a steep continuous climb, up a gradient of 1 in 82 (1.22%) and then 1 in 75 (1.33%). Elsewhere on the line, there were gradients as severe as 1 in 70.2.

Asked to provide rolling stock for a special train to take 800 excursionists, the locomotive department at Dundalk
Dundalk
Dundalk is the county town of County Louth in Ireland. It is situated where the Castletown River flows into Dundalk Bay. The town is close to the border with Northern Ireland and equi-distant from Dublin and Belfast. The town's name, which was historically written as Dundalgan, has associations...

 sent 15 vehicles hauled by a 'four-coupled'the familiar Whyte notation was not yet in use (first used in 1900) (2-4-0
2-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-4-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and no trailing wheels....

) locomotive;http://www.steamindex.com/locotype/gnri.htm gives a catalogue raisonée of the various engines of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland. From the details given in the accident report, the excursion train engine appears to have been one of the GNR(I)'s H class however the instructions to the engine driver were that the train was to be of 13 vehicles. There were more intending passengers than anticipated and to accommodate the excursion, the Armagh station master decided to use all 15 vehicles. The engine driver, who had never driven the route before (but had been over it with excursion trains when a fireman), objected to these instructions; saying that his were that the train was to be of 13 vehicles. According to the driver
Two other witnesses said that the driver had asked for a second engine if more carriages were added and had been refused by the station master, as none was available; the driver (in supplementary evidence given "through the railway company's officers") denied this. The station master's evidence was that the discussion was about adding further carriages to the 15 with which the locomotive had arrived. It is not clear that all witnesses agreed as to whether brake-vans counted as carriages or vehicles, the string with which the locomotive arrived is variously described as 15 vehicles, 15 carriages, and 13 vehicles and two brake vans
The general manager's chief clerk was to accompany the excursion; he suggested that the engine of the routine train that would be following 20 minutes behind could assist the excursion up the bank (or that some carriages could be left to come on with the routine train). Following his conversation with the station master, however, the driver refused the suggested assistance.

The train therefore set off with 15 carriages, containing about 940 passengers. The carriages were full, and some passengers travelled with the guards. Tickets were checked before setting off and in order to prevent people without tickets joining the excursion, once each compartment had been checked its doors were locked.This was described as standard practice for excursions, however it was contrary to Board of Trade recommendations made after a railway fire at Versailles in 1842 (that one door to a compartment should not be locked) and after the Abergele rail disaster in 1868 (that all doors should be unlocked)

Initially, the train made progress up the steep gradient at about 10 mph but stalled about 200 yards before the top of the gradient.

Dividing the excursion train

To prevent the train rolling back, the brakes were applied. The train did have continuous brakes
Brake (railway)
Brakes are used on the cars of railway trains to enable deceleration, control acceleration or to keep them standing when parked. While the basic principle is familiar from road vehicle usage, operational features are more complex because of the need to control multiple linked carriages and to be...

, (i.e. all carriages had brakes which could be operated by the driver), but they were of the non-automatic vacuum type. That is to say, they were applied by creation of vacuum in the brake pipes and released by admitting air to the pipe. This was the opposite of the arrangement preferred by the Board of Trade ('automatic continuous brakes') in which brakes were held off by vacuum (or compressed air) generated by the engine, so that on loss of vacuum (e.g. from a leaky connection or a connection parting) the brakes came on automatically. The two brake van
Brake van
Brake van and guard's van are terms used mainly in the UK, Australia and India for a railway vehicle equipped with a hand brake which can be applied by the guard...

s, however, (one immediately behind the engine tender, the other at the rear of the train) also had hand operated brakes, each under the control of a guard. These were applied.according to the guards

The chief clerk directed the train crew to divide the train and proceed with the front portion to Hamilton's Bawn
Hamiltonsbawn
Hamiltonsbawn or Hamilton's Bawn is a small village in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, five miles east of Armagh. It lies within the Parish of Mullabrack and the Armagh City and District Council area.- History :...

 station, about two miles away, and leave that portion there, and return for the second portion. Due to limited siding capacity at Hamilton's Bawn, they could only take the front five vehicles on there, so the rearmost ten vehicles would have to be left standing on the running line. Once this rear portion was uncoupled from the front portion, the continuous brakes on it would be released, and the only brakes holding it against the gradient would be the hand-operated brakes in the rear brake van.

For a goods train in a similar situation, the wheels would have been 'scotched'wedged or chocked against roll-back, and guards vans on goods trains carried sprags with which to do this. Those on passenger trains with continuous brakes were not required to carry sprags, and the excursion train did not. The guard in the rear van having applied his hand brake then (on the instructions of the chief clerk) dismounted and scotched the wheels of his van with pieces of ballast. He then also scotched the near rearmost vehicle on its right-hand wheels and intended to similarly scotch its left-hand wheels before going back down the track with flags and detonators
Detonator (railway)
A railway detonator is a device used to make a loud sound as a warning signal to train drivers. The detonator is the size of a large coin with two lead straps, one on each side. The detonator is placed on the top of the rail and the straps are used to secure it...

 to protect the train from the scheduled service which was to set off from Armagh 20 minutes after the excursion.

The train was screw coupled
Coupling (railway)
A coupling is a mechanism for connecting rolling stock in a train. The design of the coupler is standard, and is almost as important as the railway gauge, since flexibility and convenience are maximised if all rolling stock can be coupled together.The equipment that connects the couplings to the...

; each carriage was first coupled by a loose chain and hook coupling to the next; the slack on this was then taken up by a turnbuckle screw arrangement, until the buffers of the two carriages were touching. To uncouple, there needed to be some slack in the coupling; as the train had stopped all the couplings were under tension. Once the vacuum brake connection to the rear portion was broken, any attempt to introduce slack into the coupling between the two portions would be defeated by the rear portion settling back to rest its weight upon the rear van brakes. To assist uncoupling the front van guard therefore scotched one of the wheels of the sixth vehicle, that is, the front vehicle of the rear portion being detached. Loosening the turnbuckle thus transferred the weight of the rear portion to the scotch on the sixth vehicle, rather than to the rear van brakes. The couplings to the rear of the sixth vehicle remained under tension, and the slack introduced remained in the coupling between the fifth and sixth vehicles, which could be unhooked.

The rear carriages run away

The uncoupling accomplished by the front van guard, the driver attempted to start the front portion away. It rolled back slightly,12 or 18 inches in the opinion of the front guard – Accident return – evidence of William Moorehead jolting the rear portion; this caused the wheels of the front vehicle of the rear portion to ride up over the stones underneath them. The rear portion had been standing with its couplings tight, but now only the rear two vehicles were in any way restrained, so that the leading eight vehicles of the rear portion fell back on to them. The momentum of the eight vehicles closing on the rear two was sufficient to push them over the stones, crushing them in turn, so that now only the handbrake on the rear brake van was effective. It was overcome by the weight of ten vehicles, and the rear portion began to move downhill and began to gather speed down the steep gradient back towards Armagh station.
"..as I was putting down the last stone, I felt the carriages coming back. I went on the van, and got in, and tried, with the assistance of two passengers to get an extra turn at the brake handle, 'and was still doing this when Mr. Elliott " (the chief clerk) "jumped up on the left step, and said Try and make the best you can without breaking it (meaning the brake handle), and I said I could make no more. He then said, Oh, my God, we will be all killed, and jumped off. The speed then gradually increased, until it became so fast we could not see the hedges as we passed."
The train crew reversed the front portion and tried to catch the rear portion and recouple it, but this proved to be impossible.

Collision

The line was operated on the time interval system (rather than block working) so that there was no means at Armagh of knowing that the line was not clear. The required 20 minute interval before letting a fast train follow a slow one having elapsed, the following scheduled passenger train had left Armagh. With an engine of similar performance but a much lighter train (six vehicles) it was managing about 25 mph up the gradient when at a distance of about 500 yards the driver of the ordinary train saw the approaching runaway vehicles: he braked his train, and had reduced speed to 5 mph at the moment of collision.
By now, the runaways had travelled about 1½ miles. The pursuing driver said he did not believe they had reached more than 30 mph; the Board of Trade inspector thought 40 mph a fair estimate of their speed at the collision. 1½ miles at 1 in 75 is a vertical drop of about 100 ft and even without any friction or wind resistance a simple conservation of energy calculation will show that the runaway coaches could not have reached more than about 56 mph (If this seems too much like original research, note instead that the fall is slightly more than the vertical drop in Box Tunnel; Rolt op cit reports Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS , was a British civil engineer who built bridges and dockyards including the construction of the first major British railway, the Great Western Railway; a series of steamships, including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship; and numerous important bridges...

 to have rebutted Dionysius Lardner
Dionysius Lardner
Dionysius Lardner , was an Irish scientific writer who popularised science and technology, and edited the 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopedia.-Early life in Dublin:...

's prediction of 120 mph for a train going down the tunnel without brakes by showing the correct answer to be 56 mph)
The engine of the scheduled train was overturned, and the connection to its tender lost. This train was also fitted with 'simple' (non-automatic) continuous vacuum brakes, and these were lost when the engine became disconnected. The train split into two sections both running back down the gradient towards Armagh. Application of the handbrakes on the tender and on the brake van brought the front and rear halves of the scheduled train to a stop without further incident, a witness telling the inspector "The tender was slightly damaged, but none of the vehicles, and I heard from the guard that a horse in the box next the tender was not injured".
The occupants of the rear of the excursion train were not so lucky. The two rearmost vehicles of the excursion train were totally destroyed, and the third rearmost very badly damaged. The debris tumbled down a 45-foot high embankment.

Inadequate application of brakes

As part of his investigations, the Board of Trade inspector carried out calculations which established that a train similar to the excursion train could be hauled over the Armagh bank at about 15 mph by the excursion train engine, and supported this by a practical trial; however he did criticize the allocation of an engine with only just enough power for such a duty, especially with a driver who had little knowledge of the route. A further practical trial showed that a single brake-van with the brake correctly working and correctly applied could (without the aid of scotching) hold 10 carriages on the Armagh bank, against both their own weight and a nudge similar to that which witnesses agreed in describing as having been caused by run-back of the front portion of the divided train. Hence, the problem was not the inadequacy of the brake.
The immediate cause was the want of the application of sufficient brake power to hold the rear portion of the excursion train when this portion, consisting of nine coaches and a brake van; which had been separated from the front of the train by direction of Mr. Elliott, was slightly bumped by the front portion of the train when the driver had to set back previously to starting for Hamilton's Bawn.

Two witnesses had seen the brake working properly before the train left Armagh, and the brake apparatus had been found in the wreckage and appeared to be in good working order. Nonetheless, the rear portion had run away, and had done so with the braked wheels revolving freely. Therefore either the brake had not been applied properly by the guard, or it had been tampered with by passengers in the brake carriage; the guard should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Incorrect response to the excursion train stalling

Responsibility lay primarily with Mr Elliott, the chief clerk. He had directed a course of action which ignored Company rules. These laid down that the main guard should not leave his van until perfectly satisfied that his brake would hold the train (the train should therefore have been allowed to ease back upon the rear brake van); once he had left his brake, no attempt should be made to move the train until he was back at the brake. Meanwhile, the more junior guard should have gone back down the track to protect the train. These precautions had been omitted in order to pursue a strategy (dividing the train) which, even had nothing gone wrong, would have had no advantages over awaiting the scheduled train to assist the excursion to Hamilton's Bawn.
If Mr. Elliott had therefore only had the prudence to wait where the excursion train stopped near the top of the bank and to send back one of the guards to protect his train, with instructions to ask the driver of the ordinary train to help the excursion train up the short remaining distance, he would hardly have lost time and would, besides, have avoided the risk inseparable from the delicate operation he unwisely determined to carry out and which should have been resorted to under only most exceptional circumstances and not, as in the present case, where there was so easy a solution of the difficulty.

Wrong driver, wrong engine

The excursion train (even in the 15-vehicle form in which it set off) should have been able to climb Armagh bank at about 15 mph. The inspector considered that its failure to do so must have been due to some want of proper management of the engine by its insufficiently experienced driver. The locomotive shed foreman at Dundalk was criticised for want of judgement in not sending a more experienced driverHe made the interesting suggestion in his evidence that there had been no problem with the engine but the brakes had been tampered with. No reason was given in the accident return for discounting the possibility that the train had been held back by wrongly applied brakes. The Oxford Companion to British Railway History op cit notes - in its article on brakes (p 39) - of the simple vacuum system.
The erratic performance of early ejectors caused substantial fluctuations in vacuum while the brakes were off. This led to brake blocks rubbing on the wheels, not hard enough to stop the train, but wasting fuel...
It might also be noted that, when the various continuous braking systems had been trialled at Newark in 1875 on one run, the train with vacuum brakes 'failed to attain sufficient speed due to imperfect release of the brake blocks'
and in his choice of engine. The 2-4-0 supplied would have had insufficient margins (even when hauling a 13-vehicle excursion train) to be sure of maintaining a safe speed.The line was run on the time interval system and it was therefore dangerous to go much slower than the train behind over the more onerous gradients further up the line. For a 15-vehicle excursion, assistance should have been given by the engine of the regular train.

Failure to provide an assisting engine

The report criticised the over-confidence of the excursion engine driver as to the capabilities of his engine and regretted that his better judgment must have been overcome by the words of the Armagh station master. The chief clerk came in for further criticism for not having persisted with his instructions for the regular train engine to provide assistance. There was no direct criticism of the station master; neither for having increased the size of the train, nor for talking the engine driver round to attempting Armagh bank without assistance.

The excursion train

The organisation of this was criticised on a number of points:
  • Passengers should not have been allowed to travel in the brake-vans a practice that should be sternly prohibited
  • Carriage doors should not have been locked a wrong thing
  • Given the weight of the train and the gradients on the line, both brake-vans should have been at the rear of the train
  • it should not have been so big
    The running of such heavily-laden excursion trains as the present on lines with bad gradients, is a practice much to be deprecated ; it would be far better to limit them to about 10 vehicles. This remark more especially applies when the station from which the train starts is like that of the Newry and Armagh line at Armagh, which, as at present arranged, is perfectly unsuited for dealing with long passenger trains. In the present instance, the train, owing to its length, had to be loaded on the main line partly at the up platform and partly at the down platform, and afterwards by a series of shunts to be moved on to the Newry and Armagh Line.
    .

Trial

Six railway officers were tried and found guilty of negligence. No senior management or directors of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland were charged or convicted, even though they had chosen the less than adequate non-automatic brake.

Recommendation triggering Legislation

The key recommendation was in fact couched as a finding:
This terrible calamity would in all human probability have been prevented had the excursion train been fitted with an automatic continuous brake instead of (as it was) with only a non-automatic continuous brake. In the former case, on the dividing of the train taking place, the brake would have remained on, or (had it been previously taken off) would have been at once applied to, the rear vehicles, and these would have remained immovable, notwithstanding any possible bump they might have received from the front of the train, when the driver was setting back in order to make a start.

It may also be remarked that the ordinary train had a narrow escape from serious collision between the portions into which it was divided, or with buffer stops; whereas had it been supplied with an automatic brake, there would have been no risk of such collisions.

As the President of the Board of Trade has stated in Parliament his intention to
introduce a Bill to make compulsory the adoption of automatic continuous brakes,
should the report on this collision point out that it would have been avoided had the excursion train been fitted with them, it is unnecessary for me to say more upon the subject.

Regulatory background

For many years the Railway Inspectorate of the Board of Trade
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, originating as a committee of inquiry in the 17th century and evolving gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions...

 had been advocating three vital safety measures (among others) to often reluctant railway managements:
  • "lock" Interlocking
    Interlocking
    In railway signalling, an interlocking is an arrangement of signal apparatus that prevents conflicting movements through an arrangement of tracks such as junctions or crossings. The signalling appliances and tracks are sometimes collectively referred to as an interlocking plant...

     of points and signals, so that conflicting signal indications are prevented;
  • "block" A space-interval or absolute block system of signalling
    Railway signal
    A signal is a mechanical or electrical device erected beside a railway line to pass information relating to the state of the line ahead to train/engine drivers. The driver interprets the signal's indication and acts accordingly...

    , where one train is not allowed to enter a physical section until the preceding one had left it; and
  • "brake" Continuous brakes
    Brake (railway)
    Brakes are used on the cars of railway trains to enable deceleration, control acceleration or to keep them standing when parked. While the basic principle is familiar from road vehicle usage, operational features are more complex because of the need to control multiple linked carriages and to be...

    , to put at the command of the engine driver adequate braking power; this requirement being increased as the technology made it reasonable to 'automatic' (in modern parlance 'fail-safe') continuous brakes which had to be 'held off' by vacuum or compressed air and would be applied automatically if that supply was lost (e.g. if a train were divided).

The Board of Trade had got as far and as fast as it could by persuasion, but an inspector commented in 1880 after the Wennington Junction rail crash
Wennington Junction rail crash
Just west of Wennington railway station lies Wennington junction where the Furness and Midland Joint Railway leaves the Leeds to Morecambe section of the Midland Railway...


It is all very well for the Midland Railway Company now to plead that they are busily employed in fitting up their passenger trains with continuous breaks, but the necessity for providing the passenger trains with a larger proportion of break power was pointed out by the Board of Trade to all Railway Companies more than 20 years since; and with the exception of a very few railway companies that recognised that necessity and acted upon it, it may be truly stated that the principal Railway Companies throughout the Kingdom have resisted the efforts of the Board of Trade to cause them to do what was right, which the latter had no legal power to enforce, and even now it will be seen by the latest returns laid before Parliament that some of those Companies are still doing nothing to supply this now generally acknowledged necessity

Questions in Parliament

In the aftermath of the accident, questions to the President of the Board of Trade Sir Michael Hicks Beach
Michael Hicks Beach
Michael Edward Hicks Beach, 1st Earl St Aldwyn PC, PC , known as Sir Michael Hicks Beach, Bt, from 1854 to 1906 and subsequently as The Viscount St Aldwyn to 1915, was a British Conservative politician...

 revealed that
  • in the whole of Ireland only one engine and six vehicles were equipped with an automatic continuous brake
  • in England 18% of the passenger rolling stock had no continuous brake, and a further 22% had non-automatic brakes
  • in Scotland 40% of the passenger rolling stock were without continuous brakes

More specifically, for the Great Northern of Ireland
  • in March 1888 there were 208 drivers and firemen employed and 693 occasions on which they worked a 14-hour day or longer, including two in which they worked over 18 hoursThe questioner (the MP for West Belfast) also alleged
    the two men who acted as guards on the excursion train that met with the fatal disaster were untried men, shunters at Newry Station, and had no knowledge of the line or of the duties of a guard, and that one of them, Moorhead, had been on duty 16 hours the previous day, and also from four o'clock that morning, and that his wages were 11s. per week
    which somewhat overstated the case; they had served as guards from time to time in the past .

  • of the 518 miles of railway it worked, only 23 were worked on the block system

  • It had no engines or vehicles whose brakes met the requirements of the Board of Trade, furthermore:


MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)
Francis Channing, 1st Baron Channing of Wellingborough
Francis Allston Channing, 1st Baron Channing , known as Sir Francis Channing, Bt, between 1906 and 1912, was a British barrister, academic, and Liberal Party politician.-Background and education:...

 I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether 11 years ago, in reporting upon a serious collision on the Great Northern of Ireland Railway, between two portions of a train which had become separated, General Hutchinson pointed out to the Company that an automatic brake would have absolutely prevented the collision, by arresting the carriages the moment the separation occurred; whether at that time the secretary of the company informed General Hutchinson that the simple vacuum brake, whose failure caused this accident, was being merely tried experimentally on the line, and that the company had not yet come to a decision as to what brake would be finally adopted; and, whether, in spite of this recommendation, this simple vacuum brake, upon the failure of which General Hutchinson reported in 1878, has remained in use on the Great Northern of Ireland line ever since, and is the same brake that was in use in the recent disastrous collision near Armagh?

SIR M. HICKS BEACH The facts are as stated in the question

New legislation

The government was already short of Parliamentary time in which to pass legislation it was already committed to, and had promised to introduce no further controversial measures. A bill was drafted and introduced, only to be withdrawn when it became clear that some of its other provisions (most notably requiring specified improvements in couplings, so that those engaged in shunting could safely uncouple wagons without having to step into the gap between them) were sufficiently contentious as to jeopardise passage of the non-controversial portions of the Bill. For that reason, some Liberal MPs sympathetic to railwaymen's concerns on working hours and the hazards of shunting. amongst them noticeably the MP for Crewe
Crewe
Crewe is a railway town within the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census the urban area had a population of 67,683...

expressed disappointment that the Bill did not go far enough. On the other hand, during the Second Reading a Liberal MP made the classic argument against detailed and prescriptive regulation
It would be a very serious thing if the Government in its attempt to protect the lives of passengers by rail, and the lives of working men, should take on itself to decide what form of carriage, what form of coupling and break, is the proper form for railway companies to use. I am of opinion that the lives of passengers and railway men will be safer in the long run, if these matters are left in the hands of those who understand them best. I cordially approve of the pressure of public opinion being applied, through this House or through the Press, to railway managers, to compel them to consider both the safety of the public and the safety of their men; but if we endeavour in this matter—as we have, in my opinion, sadly too often endeavoured in the past—to give Government officials the power to decide what is the precise form of appliances which shall be used in connection with railways, we shall not be providing for the safety of the public or the safety of railway servants

Nonetheless, within 2 months of the Armagh disaster Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 had enacted the Regulation of Railways Act 1889
Regulation of Railways Act 1889
The Regulation of Railways Act 1889 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

, which authorised the Board of Trade to require the use of continuous automatic brakes on passenger railways, along with the block system of signalling and the interlocking of all points and signals. This is often taken as the beginning of the modern era in UK rail safety.
An exceptionally frightful ..[accident].. in 1889 prompted the passing of a new Regulation Act, two features of which were notable. First, Parliament rushed the Bill through all its stages at an exceptionally high speed. The accident itself occurred on 12 June; the act went into force on 30 August. And secondly, here at last the government accepted the responsibility for dictating methods of operation to the companies, requiring all lines carrying passenger trains to be worked on the block system and all such trains to be fitted with instantaneously working continuous brakes, the Board of Trade being authorised to fix time limits for completion of the work

With an ill grace and some shuffling, the companies implemented the Act. As soon as they had done so, serious accidents caused by inadequate braking ceased in Britain…Here was the most striking example of the direct intervention of the state in the working of British railways in the 19th century, and it proved entirely beneficent

Similar accidents

Round Oak rail accident
Round Oak rail accident
The Round Oak rail accident was, in the words of the United Kingdom Board of Trade inspector, "decidedly the worst railway accident that has ever occurred in this country"...

 - 1 in 75 ; 23 August 1858 – excursion runaway; brake not applied Abergele rail disaster – 26 August 1868 – brake broken by rough shunting Stairfoot rail accident
Stairfoot rail accident
The Stairfoot rail accident was a railway accident that took place at Stairfoot, South Yorkshire, England.On 12 September 1870 in Barnsley top yard a rake of 10 goods wagons was standing on a gradient of 1 in 119. A single between the spokes of a wheel was holding them. When two gas tank wagons...

 (1870) (see also BoT accident report) Murulla railway accident (26 killed) - 13 September 1926 - air brake failure 13 die near Kisumu
Kisumu
Kisumu is a port city in western Kenya at , with a population of 355,024 . It is the third largest city in Kenya, the principal city of western Kenya, the immediate former capital of Nyanza Province and the headquarters of Kisumu County. It has a municipal charter but no city charter...

, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

, after a passenger train rolls back because of air brake failure - 15 August 2000 Tenga rail disaster
Tenga rail disaster
The Tenga rail disaster of May 25, 2002 occurred at Tenga 40 km north-west from Maputo, Mozambique with heavy loss of life; there were 192 deaths and 167 injured.- Overview :...

 - 25 May 2002 Igandu train disaster
Igandu train disaster
The Igandu train disaster was an accident which occurred during the early morning of the 24 June 2002 in the East African country of Tanzania when a large passenger train with over 1,200 people on board rolled backwards down a hill into a stationary goods train, killing 281 people in the worst rail...

 - 24 June 2002

See also

  • History of rail transport in Ireland
    History of rail transport in Ireland
    The history of rail transport in Ireland began only a decade later than that of Great Britain. By its peak in 1920, Ireland counted 5,500 route kilometers...

  • Lists of rail accidents
  • Brake (railway)
    Brake (railway)
    Brakes are used on the cars of railway trains to enable deceleration, control acceleration or to keep them standing when parked. While the basic principle is familiar from road vehicle usage, operational features are more complex because of the need to control multiple linked carriages and to be...

  • List of steepest gradients on adhesion railways

External links

  • Railways Archive Website - Major General Hutchinson's report into the circumstances of the disaster, with original witness statements.
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