3-082-018 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Railway Disaster at Chelford, near Crewe: general view, 1895. Scene of a '...grievous accident by which fourteen persons were killed and more than twice as many were badly hurt...[at the] junction of the London and North-Western Railway main lines for Manchester and Liverpool...some goods traffic or trucks...had been left empty on a siding, to be attached to an expected down train. There was an engine removing these trucks...from the siding to the main down line. While this was being done there was a violent north-west gale of wind. It may have set a truck in motion, which slipped off the siding, apparently skipped over the switches...and got unobserved on the up line, perhaps a few moments only before the up express train was to pass - or perhaps at the very moment...there was no time to give the alarm or to clear the line...On came the train, at the rate of a mile in a minute, and the locomotive engine in front, striking the truck, fairly jumped over it, falling overturned beyond. The...carriages...in the middle part of the train, were smashed...In one compartment a lady had both legs cut off, and died soon after being got out...The rear van guard had his ribs fractured, but for several hours laboured to aid the suffering passengers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.