East Coast Main Line train tragedy as signalman falls asleep

“I knew what was up, but it was too late,” he said, “and all I could do was to wait for the crash.”

The reporter wrote: “The poor man is utterly prostrated and is even said to be partially unhinged mentally in consequence of the acute agony of mind resulting from the death of his child followed within a few hours by such an awful calamity.”

The awful calamity, for which Mr Holmes was being held responsible, was the death of nine passengers on the Flying Scotsman which had collided with a stationery goods train which had come to a rest outside his signalbox while he had been asleep at the levers. He had awoken to hear, in horror, the Scotch Express rushing through the foggy early hours of the morning at nearly 60mph and knew there was nothing he could do to prevent the collision.

The brass ornament, fashioned at Darlington’s North Road shops, which featured here last week is a memento of the accident.

James, 27, told reporters that on November 1, 1892, he had finished his 12 hour overnight shift in the signalbox on the East Coast Main Line to the north of Thirsk station, at 6am and had gone home to find his youngest daughter, Rosa, seriously unwell. The infant had been placed in bed beside him but he got no rest as she began fitting. He then walked many miles desperately trying to find a doctor to attend to her, but when he arrived home, the girl was dead and his wife was inconsolable.

At about 6pm, he walked to Otterington station, just south of Northallerton, and reported to the stationmaster that he was not fit for duty having not slept for 36 hours and wished to be at home with his wife. The stationmaster cabled his superiors asking for a relief signalman – but not explaining James’ terrible circumstances – but none was available.

Seeing no alternative, James reluctantly agreed to work and walked nearly a mile south to his box.

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It was to be a confused night, as James was seeking confirmation that his mother had arrived by train from York to comfort his wife, and because the Flying Scotsman was so full it was split into two trains. The first sped through the fog past his box at 3.38am, but the second part – pulled by NER locomotive number 178 – was delayed and so the regular Starbeck goods train, from Middlesbrough to Harrogate, was allowed onto the line.

Then James, who had now been awake for nearly 46 hours, was “overmastered by sleep”. He dozed off for 13 minutes, and came to with the goods train stationery outside his box and the second part of the Scotsman thundering towards it.

There was nothing he could do.

From The Northern Echo of November 4, 1872

Engine No 178 ploughed into the goods train, causing carnage. “The pullman car, which was the third behind the engine, has been shot, as from a catapult, clean over the wreck of the upturned locomotive,” said the Echo, and the following day, hundreds of sightseers turned up to ogle the flying Pullman (the sleeping carriage). “Marvelous to say,” said the Echo, “none of its occupants were severely injured.” Which was good as the Marquis of Tweedale and the Marquis of Huntly had both been snoozing inside it.

Others were not so lucky, especially as about an hour after the impact, a hot coal from No 178’s engine ignited a timber carriage causing an inferno.

NER No 178 standing at Darlington's Bank Top station. It was involved in the Thirsk crash of November 2, 1892, and the brass ornament was made out of its damaged pipes when it was undergoing repairs at North Road shops

An experienced firefighter pointed out to the reporter the colour of flame that indicated burning flesh. “As the flames died out, some bones were seen to be protruding from the glowing embers of the consumed woodwork, and these on examination by the medical men were pronounced to be those of two women, presumably Mrs McKenzie and Miss McCulloch, both of whom are missing,” said the Echo.

The “steel busks of the corsets” of the women were eventually retrieved from where their bodies had been.

How Mr McKenzie, lying injured in a cottage at the nearby Manor House Farm, and Mr McCulloch, being treated in a hotel near Thirsk station, felt when they read their morning papers can only be imagined.

Signalman Holmes was arrested and charged with manslaughter. He was found guilty but, when his terrible circumstances became known, he was given an absolute discharge. Instead the railway company, and the stationmaster, were strongly criticised.

Loco No 178, which had been built in Gateshead in August 1875, was taken to the nearest workshops for repairs. That would have been Darlington’s North Road, where a railwayman fashioned the brass ornament (above) that featured last week which Mel Holmes has had in his home in Bishop Auckland for a long time, not knowing the story.

“Items like the ornament were often made out of old boiler tubes which were opened out and flattened to provide the material,” says Graham Redfearn, one of several kind people to contact us after last week’s article.

“The side of the tube which had been exposed to the fire was usually pitted and blackened but the other side would clean up reasonably well.

“Brass rolling pins were also made from old tubes.”

So it would seem that Mel’s ornament, which shows NER No 178 and features the date of the crash, was made from brass salvaged from the engine.

No 178, which had also survived a derailment near Berwick in 1880, was repaired and returned to service. It was scrapped from Barnard Castle in 1922.

• With thanks also to Tom Hutchinson

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