Norwood Junction
24th March 1871
extracted and adapted from the report by
H.W. Tyler
A collision occurred on the 24th March 1871, at the Norwood Junction on the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. In
this case, the 10.30 p.m. passenger train from London Bridge, via Norwood and the Balham line, for the Victoria station, came
into collision with four low sided trucks, loaded with materials for the erection of booths, which stood in its way across the main
line. Sixteen passengers have complained of injury.
At the Norwood Junction station there are eight lines through the passenger shed, of which five are used as passenger lines, and
three are used as sidings. On the south of the junction station there are goods sidings east and west of the passenger lines; and
goods trucks are shunted by day and night across the passenger lines, and into and out of the three lines under the passenger
shed which are used as sidings. There is a raised signal cabin 107 yards south of the passenger platform, from which 14 pairs of
points, and five home and three distant signals, are worked. But there are upwards of a dozen pairs of points which are not
worked from the cabin; and the points and signals in the cabin have not yet been interlocked with one another.
The passenger train left the London Bridge station at 10.31, one minute late, on the night in question, consisting of an engine
and tender, and six passenger carriages, of which two were break carriages. It reached the Norwood Junction station at 10.59,
and started again punctually at 11.1 p.m. A porter on the platform reported the time to be up for starting after the train had
waited two minutes. The head guard saw that the fixed signal had been lowered, and gave the engine driver a signal to start with
hand lamp. The engine driver found the signal down for him to proceed before he entered the station on his arrival; and when he
received orders to start, he opened his whistle, and turned on his steam. He had moved forward rather more than 100 yards ,
when he perceived, by the light of his green head lamp, that there were some trucks in his way on the main line. He shut off his
steam, opened his whistle, and directed his fireman to apply the break; and the train at once came into collision with the trucks,
while travelling at a speed of from 10 to 15 miles an hour. The guards of the train were first aware of their danger from the
shock of the collision. the leading guard was slightly injured, but the second guard was not hurt; and they have neither of them
been absent from their work since it occurred.
The buffer plank and left buffer, and the footplate side of the passenger engine, were damaged; and the engine left the line with
all, and the tender with four of its wheels. One quarter light was found broken in a second class carriage. Two of the trucks were
knocked off the rails, and damaged; the horn plates having given way, and a pair of wheels having been knocked from under
one of them. None of the passenger vehicles left the rails.
The signalman on duty in the signal cabin south of the junction, previously referred to, was not aware that the passenger line
was blocked by the four tucks which thus stood across it, in the ay of the passenger train. He knew, before that train arrived, that
it was approaching Norwood; as it had been signalled to him by telegraph in the usual course from the north cabin at Norwood,
as soon as the signalman in that cabin received notice of it from Anerley. He had also received a signal from the direction of the
passenger platform, from the hand lamp of the head shunter, to indicate that the passenger line was clear of trucks. He therefore
lowered his signals about four minutes before the passenger train arrived; in readiness for it to start again by the West Croydon
line towards Victoria, as soon as it had exchanged passengers at Norwood. the trucks were standing during these four minutes
directly under and within a few yards of his cabin, but he knew nothing, as already stated, of their being in the way of the
passenger train until after the collision occurred. The night was dark, and even if it had been lighter, the trucks were in a
position in which he could not have seen them without leaning out of the door of his cabin. He had come on duty at 10 p.m., to
remain till 7 a.m.; and the collision occurred at 11.1 p.m. He had allowed an engine to leave the passenger shed with the trucks
about a quarter of an hour before the collision occurred, but he did not know what became of the trucks. He had no control over
the working of the points through which the trucks were turned towards and across the passenger line; and he considered that
the head shunter was responsible to him for keeping the line clear, or for letting him know if it was obstructed.
The head shunter, at quarter to eleven, had ordered one of his shunters, Snelling, to pull three trucks over the spur points, and go
out on the Croydon Road, and put four trucks through the box points, all clear of the down Croydon Road; and then to come
back on to the carriage road, and push back the three trucks, which he left on the spur road; and then take the engine and one
truck back to him again on the carriage road. Whiles he went himself along the carriage road, to see what goods were waiting
there for the east and west branches, the above operations were going on; and when Snelling came back, the head shunter asked
him if he had put the trucks under the box, all clear of the down Croydon road. He replied that he had done so; and the two men,
waiting then, for the passenger train to pass, gave signals of line clear to the signalman in his cabin.
It appears that Snelling unhooked the wagons in due course, with a view to their being shunted as described; and that another
shunter, Austin, was employed to hold a pair of points, some 200 yards distant, connected with the West Croydon line. Austin
held the points on the West Croydon line, but there was no one to hold an intermediate pair of points, nearer to the cabin, which
led, when set in the wrong direction, across the passenger line, to the spur line. These points, thus allowed to be self acting, did
not fall back into their proper position, but remained open for the spur line; and the trucks thus passed across the passenger line,
in place of running down parallel to it, and without crossing it, into the passenger shed. The two men then went to assist with
the engine and other trucks. Neither of them went to see wether the four trucks had gone down their proper line. Snelling took it
for granted that they had done so, and no one knew that they had gone down the wrong line, and fouled the passenger line,
before the collision occurred.
This mode of procedure appears to have been in accordance with the practice of these men in conducting their shunting
operations. They had not previously found the points in question to fail; they trusted to their falling back, by the action of the
weights attached to them, after the passage of an engine through them; and the points were in good condition, nearly new, and
apparently in good working order. But it was not right on the part of the shunter, after allowing the engine to push the wagons
back towards the signal cabin and passenger station, to go back and report al right, and to give a signal to the signalman in the
cabin, to intimate that the line was clear for the passenger train, without first ascertaining, and making sure, that the trucks had
travelled back in the direction which they were intended to take, and had come to a stand in a safe position on the sidings.
This collision was the result, therefore, of an inferior system of working, in shunting goods trucks in the neighbourhood of and
on passenger lines. And it would not have occurred if the points which thus happened to be set in the wrong direction had been
connected with the signal cabin, and interlocked with the other points and with the signals. The trucks could not then have
fouled the passenger line, except by the direct action of the signalman; and the signalman could not have opened the points for
them to do so, except when his signals were at danger. By his being requires to move the points, he must also have been made
aware of any danger of this description, from the passenger line being fouled, or being liable to be fouled, in the process of
shunting. With a view to the prevention of such accidents in future, it is desirable that a new and larger signal cabin should be
provided, from which all the points and signals may be worked, and in which they may be properly interlocked with one
another. I learn that improvements of this description were already in contemplation; and it would be an additional advantage if
in re-arranging the construction and working of the station and yard, the goods and passenger lines were kept so far distinct
from one another that all shunting should be conducted independently of the passenger lines, and all necessary crossing of the
passenger lines should be done on a regular system, under the direct control of the signalman.
I learn that three days after the occurrence of the above collision certain trucks were again pushed back in the wrong direction
through the same points; but the points were found on this second occasion to ve out of order, and in such a way as to lead to a
suspicion of their having been tampered with.