Bodies On Trains

[JBuchananGB]

Although the body was alive in this case. On some BR standard compartment stock a compartment facing the corridor external door had a window where the large lower half was hinged. I was told this was for stretched cases. Was this correct and if so was it ever used for that purpose?

I can confirm that this was indeed for stretcher cases. Sometime about 1970 I accompanied a patient from Oldchurch Hospital Romford to Edinburgh. My mother was the almoner at the hospital. Ambulance to Kings Cross, then boarded the overnight train using the hinged window arrangement. Well the stretcher went in that way. Met at Edinburgh by an ambulance crew to convey the patient to hospital. He was a roofer who lived in Galashiels, but had fallen off/through a roof while working in the Romford area. Kicked my heels around Edinburgh for a few hours then on the 10am service back.

 

[181]

It can still be done on Amtrak (although currently suspended, presumably due to COVID).

I recall a few years ago someone tried to take a body on an EasyJet flight from Manchester to Poland and tried to pass the corpse off as just being a bit under the weather and needing helping, because a living person could be carried much cheaper than cargo! Did this ever happen on trains?

Staying in the USA, I seem to remember a play on Radio 4 some time ago (1990s?) about a train journey in America (I'm not sure whether it was set in the then-present or some earlier era) where a train passenger was trying to conceal the fact that their 'ill' relative in the top bunk was in fact dead, and some years later a news report of something similar happening in reality. (A long shot, but does anyone else remember either the play or the news report? The only detail that I can remember is that the play featured Copland's Saturday Night Waltz as incidental music).

 

[65477]

When I first came onto the forum this morning the headline pop-up advert was for a pre paid funeral plan!

 

[Lucan]

the Arnold Bennett short story "In a New Bottle" comes to mind.

... and Thomas Hardy's "A Pair of Blue Eyes" in which a coffin is conveyed in a van at the rear of the train.

 

[Watford West]

Interesting footplate reminiscence: Winston Churchill funeral train

a very interesting piece on the preparation and driving of Winston Churchill's funeral train. thanks Evening Star

 

[WesternLancer]

Although the body was alive in this case. On some BR standard compartment stock a compartment facing the corridor external door had a window where the large lower half was hinged. I was told this was for stretched cases. Was this correct and if so was it ever used for that purpose?

Yes, this was detailed in the journal of the Friends of the Nat Railway Magazine in the last year or two, in a detailed article about carrying invalids by rail over time, that covered, IIRC, ambulance trains in wartime, and ways in which railways took people on pilgrimages to Lourdes, where of course some passengers might have had significant disabilities etc.

Note - just seen other informative post on this from @Gloster

I've seen this in the past on the platform at Horsted Keynes, Bluebell Railway:

Coffin Carrier at Horsted Keynes Station © David Hillas cc-by-sa/2.0

This coffin carrier with the initials SR for Southern Railway can be found on the Southbound platform at Horsted Keynes Station on the Bluebell Railway.

www.geograph.org.uk

wheeled coffin carrier

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Anyone know where the item at Horsted Keynes was actually in use previously, or has someone in the Bluebell's renovation department just got imaginative with an old trolley?

 

[WesternLancer]

Anyone know where the item at Horsted Keynes was actually in use previously, or has someone in the Bluebell's renovation department just got imaginative with an old trolley?

gets a short mention here but assume that is repairs, AFAIK it was original - not sure where from

News from the Bluebell Railway

www.bluebell-railway-museum.co.uk

This 50 page RCHS article might be the definitive written work on the topic for this thread!

https://rchs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/FINAL-Parsons-Coffins-by-Train.pdf

Includes pre grouping tariffs and is fully referenced too!

From construction in the 1830s, the UK rail network brought mobility not only for the living but also the dead. As a technological advancement railways revolutionised the transportation of coffins through providing an efficient, swift and cost-effective mode of conveyance; wherever a station existed, a coffin could be despatched or received.

 

[JModulo]

I can recall of a few instances where the person involved in a fatality has been taken away by train due to access to difficult locations. The RMT caused a bit of noise due to this.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Up until the early 1990s it was the guards resposibility to go back and remove the body from the line,unless it was thought suspicious and you then had to mark where the body was before removal. Thankfully I never had to do it but I relieved a guard once who's train had been involved in a fatality,he was as white as a sheet from carrying out the removal.