Safety on the LMS

Entry Page 'Gateway' Home Continuous braking : each carriage on a train has its own brakes, operated by either vacuum or air from the engine, the former being more common during the era of the Big 4. Rotary Interlocking Block : A system whereby a train cannot accepted into a block of line unless the train preceding it has cleared the block. Upper Quadrant Semaphore : Semaphore Signalling uses a red board on a mast to indicate whether a train can proceed or not. If the board is at 90 degrees to the mast, the train must stop. If it is raised higher (upper quadrant) or lower (lower quadrant), the train may proceed.  If the signal is yellow in colour, this is a distant signal and serves to indicate the position of the next stop signal on the line, a warning to train crews to slow if necessary for that signal.

By 1923, Britain's railways had improved somewhat on safety from the previous century. Passenger trains now had continuous braking, and communication and signalling had improved drastically from the primitive systems of the Victorian age. However, in 1923 the LMS inherited a signalling system that was heavily reliant on the signalmen and train crews not making mistakes, and this system would contribute heavily towards accidents during the next quarter of a century, and into nationalisation as well. The issue at question with regard to installing more automated procedures was nearly always the cost involved, and the overall thinking in LMS management was that provided everyone did their jobs properly, no one would get hurt and automation was an unnecessary luxury. The Midland Railway had installed a rotary interlocking block system, but that was about it. Automatic Train Control and Automatic Warning Systems were unheard of, and the lack of these systems could be considered a contributory factor in the Harrow crash of 1952. As far as signalling went, the LMS used upper quadrant semaphore signalling as a whole, although some colour light signalling was used on the West Coast and Midland main lines, and on the suburban lines to Watford and Tilbury. The one on the Tilbury line was based on a experimental system that indicated speed rather than route, which often meant that there could be four lights on at any signal, and the train crew had to know which one was relevant to them. Major Incidents on the LMS, 1923-1947 Date Place Incident Type Cause Killed 26/4/1924 Euston Collision Signalling error 5 3/11/1924 Lytham Derailment & Fire Locomotive defect 14 19/11/1926 Rawmarsh Derailment & Collision Passenger train collided with derailed Freight train 9 13/10/1928 Charfield Collision & Fire Signal passed at Danger 17 8/1/1929 Ashchurch Collision Signal passed at Danger 4 22/3/1931 Leighton Buzzard Derailment Excessive speed 4 17/6/1932 Great Bridgeford Derailment Excessive speed 6 6/9/1934 Port Eglinton Junc. Collision Signal Passed at Danger 4 28/9/1934 Winwick Junction Collision Signalling error 9 13/3/1935 Kings Langley Multiple collisions Signalling error 11 8/4/1938 Rutherglen Derailment Coach defect 1 14/10/1940 Wembley Derailment Runaway luggage trolley 2 14/9/1941 Holmes Chapel Collision Signalling error 9 30/12/1941 Eccles Collision Signalling irregularities/distant signal not observed by train crew 23 30/9/1945 Bourne End Derailment Excessive speed/distant signal not acted on 23 1/1/1946 Lichfield Collision Track defect 20 21/7/1947 Polesworth Derailment Track defect due to lack of maintenance. 5 (Taken from LMS 150 page 94) The above table shows that most of the major incidents appear to have been caused by some sort of human error; 5 had their origins partly or wholly due to errors in signalling (mostly block instrumentation being cleared incorrectly) and another 5 were partially or wholly due to an error made by the train crew. In two incidents, the fact that the carriages were still using gas lighting (a relic of the Victorian age, and not completely eliminated until the 1950's) which started fires (A particular tragedy of the Charfield crash was that amongst the casualties there were two children who were never identified; what they were doing on the train and why no one ever came forward to claim them, will probably remain a mystery). It should also be realised, that during the Second World War, the railways were forced to operate under conditions that were not conducive to safety (e.g. blackout) and these conditions probably contributed to some of the accidents between 1939 and 1947 (bearing in mind that during the war, the railways were stretched to the limit, and maintenance was often deferred if not absolutely essential.) The table in "LMS 150" carries on until 1955; I have not gone that far as it is outside the scope of this site.