Shipton-on-Cherwell train crash

The Shipton-on-Cherwell train crash was a major disaster which occurred on the Great Western Railway. It involved the derailment of a long passenger train at Shipton-on-Cherwell near Kidlington, Oxfordshire, England, on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1874, and was one of the worst ever disasters on the Great Western Railway. The thorough investigation by the Railway Inspectorate of the Board of Trade highlighted several safety problems. The accident came in a decade which saw many terrible accidents on the rail network, and culminated in the Tay Rail Bridge disaster of 1879.

Causes

The basic cause was established as a broken tyre on the carriage just behind the locomotive, but that failure was worsened by the poor braking system fitted to the train. When a passenger warned the driver of the problem, by waving from the carriage window, it was still being pulled along intact along the rails. However, the driver braked immediately, before the brake at the rear of the train in the guards van could be applied. The engine brake caused the failed carriage to be squashed, and the carriages behind derailed near the Oxford Canal. There were 34 deaths and 69 seriously injured in the carriages which fell from the bridge over the canal.

Investigation

The thorough investigation which followed established the root causes very quickly. The tyre was on an old carriage, and was of an obsolete design. The fracture started at a rivet hole, possibly by metal fatigue, although it was not recognised as such by the inquiry. The weather was very cold that day, with snow blanketing the fields and very low freezing temperatures, another factor which hastened the tyre failure. The disaster led to a reappraisal of braking methods and systems, and eventual adoption of continuous automatic brakes being fitted to trains, based either on the Westinghouse air brake or a vacuum brake. The Railway Inspectorate recommended Mansell wheels be adopted by the railway companies since the design had a better safety record than the alternatives. There had been a long history of failed wheels involved in serious accidents, especially in the previous decade. They were also critical of the communication method between the locomotive and the rest of the train using an external cord and gong, suggesting that a telegraphic method be adopted instead.

References

*L. T. C. Rolt, "Red for Danger: the classic history of British railway disasters" Sutton Publishing (1998)
*PR Lewis, "Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847", Tempus Publishing (2007) ISBN 978 0 7524 4266 2
*Peter R Lewis and Alistair Nisbet, "Wheels to Disaster!: The Oxford train wreck of Christmas Eve, 1874", Tempus (2008) ISBN 978 0 7524 4512 0

External links

* [http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=46&PHPSESSID=6a3f8d82df26a7e7b93812055ff97a3f] Railways Archive description, including the Board of Trade Official Report on the GWR accident at Shipton-on-Cherwell (April, 1875)]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/4112115.stm Recent Exhibition]
* [http://catskillarchive.com/rrextra/wkbkch02.Html Discussion in Victorian book]
* [http://www.pendragonpublishing.co.uk/html/december_2006.html Recent article]