The Harrow Railway Disaster, 1952: Twenty Five Years on
The double collision involving three trains at Harrow & Wealdstone in October 1952 in terms of casualties was the second worst ever in Britain. Yet unlike the Gretna disaster in 1915, coming in peace-time and at a stage in railway history when known technology and design improvements were available but had not been applied, its impact on a country recovering from six years of war was undoubtedly greater than any other railway accident. At one moment the platforms at Harrow were bustling with life, as they always were at around 8.15 in the rush hour, and in the next, with two mighty collisions, as trains piled into each other to form a mountain of wreckage, 112 passengers and railway staff lay dead or dying and over 150 injured. The immediate cause was known but the reasons remain unsolved to this day.
The Harrow disaster, like certain other accidents in railway history, brought a new era in rail safety, for it hastened the general introduction of an automatic warning system of signals at caution in the driver's cab, originated by the Great Western Railway almost half a century before.
L F E Coombs, professionally involved in the design of man/machine controls, looks back 24 years at the tragic combination of circumstances that produced the Harrow accident. He analyses the events, the equipment, operating methods and possible reasons in the light of new thinking and knowledge, and, in particular, the part played by steam locomotive cab design. He discusses developments in rail safety, taking examples of other similar accidents aimed at the elimination of the human factor, to reduce the chances of a similar disaster happening again.
Hardback with dust jacket, 160 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Good/Very Good
ISBN: 9780715374092
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