Twenty-five years ago today...

[CyrusWuff]

35 people died and nearly 500 were injured when three trains collided near Clapham Junction following a wrong side signal failure.

From BBC News today:

Clapham rail disaster: Ex-firefighter remembers train crash

Twenty-five years ago 35 people were killed and 500 people injured when three trains collided in Clapham, south London. BBC producer Clifford Thompson, who at that time worked as a firefighter and was on duty that day, says he will never forget what he saw.

The teleprinter furiously spat out messages printed on to a roll of paper.

It was Monday, 12 December 1988 - a bright but fiercely cold day - just after 08:00.

The London Fire Brigade's Green Watch firefighters were coming to the end of their 48-hour shift.

I stood in the watch room at Stratford fire station in east London - I'd been a firefighter for three years and was one of the Red Watch crews preparing to relieve our colleagues.

We crowded around the teleprinter as messages were relayed from Spencer Park in Clapham.

"This is a major incident - initiate major incident procedure," followed by: "two commuter trains in collision, five carriages involved, approximately 150 casualties, unknown number of people trapped, efforts being made to release".

A train travelling from Poole, Dorset, had passed a "clear" signal just outside Clapham Junction Station and hit the back of a train from Basingstoke, ripping open carriages. Some de-railed carriages were pushed into the path of a third train travelling away from London.

Fifteen fire engines from closer stations headed straight to the crash site, along with a number of specialist rescue firefighters and police, ambulance and hospital surgical teams.

At that point - being 12 miles away and a 45-minute drive from Clapham - I thought there was little chance of our crew getting called there.

Then at 10:25 the officer in charge of the incident sent the radio message: "request 18 pump relief... as soon as possible... rendezvous at junction of Windmill Road and Spencer Park."

A few minutes later the teleprinter bell sounded at Stratford and our engine was despatched to the crash.

I was struck by the scale of what met us - there were dozens of emergency service vehicles and also TV crews.

It was a surreal sight, like a massive film set.

We were told to go down to the crash site and assist with the remaining victims.

In the eerie quiet, it was clear that of those remaining, none was alive.

I walked down the steep embankment - at the bottom was a ledge with a vertical drop about 15ft (4.5m) into the cutting - and saw the jumbled mess of iron and steel.

Ladders and ropes were used to help us get down there.

'Quiet determination'

A man's body was pulled from the wreckage, followed by a woman who had suffered multiple injuries.

We removed another body, leaving only one in place: a man thrown from one of the first two carriages on the Poole train.

At 15:52 another radio message was sent: "All bodies now removed from remaining coaches - British Rail heavy cutting and lifting units in operation. Brigade crews now standing by."

I played a very small part in the rescue operation: one of about 250 firefighters who attended the incident.

I could not imagine what the scene was like for the very first crews to arrive confronted by hundreds of injured people. But we worked with quiet determination to make sure that the final bodies were recovered with as much dignity as possible.

It took more than a year for the 250-page report by Anthony Hidden QC to be published.

It found that faulty wiring had caused an incorrect signal to be displayed to the driver of the Poole train, who was driving into a blind bend and had no chance of stopping.

This crash was by far the largest incident I had attended at that point in my firefighting career.

Of course, I had attended other incidents where people had died. But none of them were on this scale - even 25 years ago, it remains difficult to take in.

 

[ainsworth74]

In case anyone is interested the report into the accident can be found here. The thing that sticks with me the most from reading about this accident was that it was all caused by one piece of wire being in the wrong place.

 

[steevp]

I was on the train just in front of this (one of the first trains up from Portsmouth) and have always been conscious that by a quirk of fate I narrowly missed being in this mess. I was co-opted in to help in the press office in Waterloo that day answering the phones from people enquiring after the missing. My thoughts are with the relatives of those that died and the people injured, some of who are still affected.

 

[12CSVT]

In case anyone is interested the report into the accident can be found here. The thing that sticks with me the most from reading about this accident was that it was all caused by one piece of wire being in the wrong place.

And fatigue from working excessive amounts of overtime.

 

[RichmondCommu]

In case anyone is interested the report into the accident can be found here. The thing that sticks with me the most from reading about this accident was that it was all caused by one piece of wire being in the wrong place.

I was one of the walking wounded that morning. It's a morning that I shall never forget. I've been in the US all week but will be paying my respects at the memorial tomorrow evening.

 

[Waldgrun]

I was working a late turn that day,a shuttle service 2 tph was set up between Woking and Portsmouth all stations very quickly! I wonder now if the railway network can react with the same speed today,
Also not many accounts record the fact that there were three not two trains involved, the two up trains collided as an empty down train was passing, I knew the driver of this train, and that afterwards parts of the press tried to hound him to their cost!

 

[RichmondCommu]

Also not many accounts record the fact that there were three not two trains involved, the two up trains collided as an empty down train was passing, I knew the driver of this train, and that afterwards parts of the press tried to hound him to their cost!

For what it's worth I never blamed the employees of BR, just their working practices and ultimately their rolling stock. Those Mk1's did very little to help me and my fellow commuters that day.

 

[Darren R]

For what it's worth I never blamed the employees of BR, just their working practices and ultimately their rolling stock.

Indeed; in retrospect it was probably an accident waiting to happen. It was a terrible day for all those involved and for BR as a whole.