Indeed - Captain Tyler from the Board of Trade referred to it at the time as "decidedly the worst railway accident" to happen in the country.
Of interest is that it's more widely known as the Round Oak rail crash, despite the collision being the Brettell Lane side of Brierley Hill station - the dates aren't clear but it seems Brierley Hill hadn't quite opened then. I suppose the breakaway did, after all, happen at Round Oak.
I grew up very close to the accident site, so it's to my own embarrassment that I actually know very little aside from that in the widespread literature (Rolt, for example). Maybe I shall make an effort to go home and review some local archives when I get a chance to go back.