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A plaque with an inscription to John Chiddy can be found on Memorial Cottage in Hanham, Bristol. The building was built in 1877 for his widow and family using public subscriptions. He was struck and killed by an express train having removed a large boulder from the line near Conham knowing that the arrival of the train was imminent. His actions almost certainly prevented the train from plunging into the River Avon.
As his Wikipedia page shows, there is a plaque to John Axon GC (and guard John Creamer) at Chapel-en-le-Frith station, where they died on 9th February 1957. This of course is still quite well known outside railway circles, as it was the subject of the first of the radio ballads - The ballad of John Axon (also 1957). For those not old enough to remember the accident or the radio ballads, his name is perhaps better known as that of his grandson, the TV actor, whose life also ended prematurely.
There is a small memorial at Tebay to the PWay staff killed there in the trolley runaway accident. It’s located at the stub end of the farm access roadway
Quite a few heritage lines appear to have memorials or memorial gardens to remember members and volunteers who have passed away. The FWHR has memorial gardens at Tanybwlch and Rhyd Ddu, a memorial at Boston Lodge and a few memorial plaques in the garden at Minffordd. Talyllyn has the Brynglas Memorial Garden.
By strange coincidence, it happens to be the anniversary of the Ealing rail disaster today (19/12).
I don't think there is a memorial to Ealing; certainly, no memorial exists that I could find with a bit of googling.
19/12/73, an improperly closed hatch flies open and hits a points motor, changing the points under the train and derailing it at 70mph. 10 dead, 94 injured. The smallest of details can have the gravest of consequences when overlooked.
The centenary of the Manton railway tragedy has been marked with a special event on Thursday 23 May held by Network Rail and the University of Portsmouth.
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The centenary of the Manton railway tragedy has been marked with a special event on Thursday 23 May held by Network Rail and the University of Portsmouth.
On 24 May 1924, a railway worker Richard Shillaker was filling lamps with oil near the Manton tunnel southern entrance, in Rutland, when there was an explosion. The alarm was raised, and four track workers went to help.
Colleagues working nearby rushed to help, but as they did so a second, bigger, explosion followed, killing John Cockerill and William Hibbert, and injuring the other three men, George Buckby, Richard Shillaker and Thomas Shillcock.
Descendants of the men involved in the accident have attended a special commemorative event, which took place near the site of the accident.
One of the most poignant memorials I have encountered is in the waiting room at Bologna railway station. Not to a crash but to the victims of the terrorist attack. You stand next to the small depression / crater in the floor where the bomb exploded, and above is a list of the victims and their ages… Totally humbling…
Does anyone know whether there is a memorial for the 20 dead in the Hall Road disaster on 27 July 1905. My great grandfather was on the train and was badly shaken up. He lived in Formby at the time and ran his business in Liverpool.
There is a trackside memorial at Parkside, near Newton le Willows, to commemorate William Huskisson MP who was killed by a train at the opening ceremony of the Liverpool & Manchester railway in 1830.
There is the following plaque at Bramley Station, Surrey.
BRAMLEY PARISH COUNCIL
BRAMLEY HISTORY SOCIETY
ON 16TH DECEMBER 1942 EIGHT PEOPLE LOST THEIR LIVES AND 36 MORE WERE INJURED WHEN A TRAIN FROM GUILDFORD WAS BOMBED AND MACHINE-GUNNED AS IT APPROACHED BRAMLEY STATION.
To clarify, the memorial is at the lower end of the graveyard at St James Church in Old Charfield, which can be found on the hill above the village, turning left at the roundabout into Churchend Lane, and not at St John's C of E Church opposite Manor Lane.
There is a trackside memorial at Parkside, near Newton le Willows, to commemorate William Huskisson MP who was killed by a train at the opening ceremony of the Liverpool & Manchester railway in 1830.
Are you sure it's for that rather than the 1989 Purley crash? There certainly is (or was) a memorial garden at Purley station for the 1989 crash, I think it's on Platform 1. Or is there a separate memorial for the 2002 fire?
Talking of fires, there is a memorial plaque for the 1987 King's Cross fire as mentioned in entry #1 at the start of this thread, but does anyone know if there's a memorial to the 12 people killed in the 1978 Taunton sleeping car train fire?
is there one at stoke canon for albert cross , passenger in br van stalled on crossing tragically killed when hit by newspaper train 1b79 on 3rd oct 76
Are you sure it's for that rather than the 1989 Purley crash? There certainly is (or was) a memorial garden at Purley station for the 1989 crash, I think it's on Platform 1. Or is there a separate memorial for the 2002 fire?
To clarify, the memorial is at the lower end of the graveyard at St James Church in Old Charfield, which can be found on the hill above the village, turning left at the roundabout into Churchend Lane, and not at St John's C of E Church opposite Manor Lane.
It is almost certain that no children were killed at Charfield; the only two who were known to have been on the train were later traced: one was slightly injured and the other unscathed. However, the bodies of the dead were so badly burnt that they had to guess how to reassemble them and ended up with two small boxes containing parts that they couldn’t tie up with any particular body. The story has stuck that they were the coffins of unidentified children.
It is almost certain that no children were killed at Charfield; the only two who were known to have been on the train were later traced: one was slightly injured and the other unscathed. However, the bodies of the dead were so badly burnt that they had to guess how to reassemble them and ended up with two small boxes containing parts that they couldn’t tie up with any particular body. The story has stuck that they were the coffins of unidentified children.
To be fair, the memorial is to ALL those killed in the accident, not just the assumed children.
For many years the memorial was visited by a lady, arriving in a posh car and speaking to no-one, who laid a bunch of flowers there. The story in the village was that she possibly was the mother of what was thought to be those children. Eventually someone worked out she was just a relative of one of the named fatalities.
The local Grammar School (Katherine Lady Berkeley's) wrote a "folk opera" about the accident in 1971/2 of which I have a recording somewhere, as I sang one of the songs.
It is almost certain that no children were killed at Charfield; the only two who were known to have been on the train were later traced: one was slightly injured and the other unscathed. However, the bodies of the dead were so badly burnt that they had to guess how to reassemble them and ended up with two small boxes containing parts that they couldn’t tie up with any particular body. The story has stuck that they were the coffins of unidentified children.
There has long been a belief that the Quintinshill troop train had three children as passengers, dying in the carnage and being incinerated. Could three similar small coffins be the source of this?
There has long been a belief that the Quintinshill troop train had three children as passengers, dying in the carnage and being incinerated. Could three similar small coffins be the source of this?
The suggestion that three children stowed away on a troop train, perished in the Quintinshill disaster, and were never missed is almost certainly an urban myth.
The origin of the tale seems to be a comment in John Thomas’s ‘Gretna, Britain’s Worst Railway Disaster’, published in 1969. He mentions that, at a drill hall used as a mortuary, one of the coffins bore a label inscribed ‘little girl, unrecognisable’ and another ‘three trunks, probably children’. The bodies were buried in a Glasgow cemetery. John Thomas provides no source for this comment and does not mention the children in the chapter on Quintinshill in his book ‘Obstruction Danger’.
The official report on the accident, published in September 1915, refers only to a total of 82 ‘Other bodies recovered but unrecognisable’.
The story re-emerged in June 2011 when a Scottish councillor (known for his interest in UFOs) arranged for a monument to be erected in Glasgow’s Western Necropolis to ‘the lost children of Maryhill, tragic victims of the Quintinshill disaster, sadly never named or claimed’.
It was not unknown for undertakers to put a note on a coffin to aid identification but the very fact that one coffin was being used for the remains of three of the dead illustrates the extent to which bodies had been damaged in the crash. The average height of adults in the early part of the twentieth century was much less than today. Soldiers could be as young as 15 and a blind eye turned to official height requirements. Estimating age from the trunk of a body, particularly by doctors overwhelmed by the number of dead, may have been largely guess work.
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The recent threads on the accidents at Lewisham and Clapham mention the memorials that have been erected at these tragic sites. This has prompted me to wonder how many similar memorials exist. Ones that come to mind include:
At Harrow and Wealdstone, there is a plaque outside the North Entrance. At Quintinshill, there is a plaque on a nearby bridge, a cairn in the car park at the Gretna service area and a memorial in Rosebank Cemetery, Edinburgh. At Moorgate, there are memorials in Moor Place and Finsbury Square. At Kings Cross there are plaques at the station and in St Pancras Church.
In Armagh, there is a poignant statue on The Mall and a plaque outside the Methodist Church. There is a memorial in the churchyard at Abergele. There is plaque in the village of Abermule. At Soham, there is a memorial to the victims of the munition train’s explosion and plaques in St Andrew’s church and at the station. There are plaques at Sutton Coldfield,Polmont and Hither Green. In the churchyard of St John’s, Bromsgrove, there are two tombstones of the men killed in a boiler explosion at the local station.
Not strictly a railway accident, but at the Underground station at Bethnal Green there is the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ memorial and a plaque on the staircase leading to the platforms.
No doubt there are several more. Are there other sites where a memorial would be appropriate?
Thanks to all who have contributed to the ‘Memorials’ thread.
More than 50 memorials have been identified, including classic stone monuments, plaques at or near stations and memorial gardens. Some are in nearby churches including Salisbury, Hawes Junction, Ais Gill, Charfield and Abergele. Some are not strictly railway accidents but occurred at stations, such as Kings Cross and the war time disasters at Bethnal Green and Balham. Quintinshill has four memorials, two near the site, one at Larbert and the memorial in Rosebank cemetery, Edinburgh.
One accident with a memorial receives little mention in the usual railway histories: Bere Ferrers (1917) when 10 New Zealand troops alighted from their train on the wrong side and were struck by a Waterloo – Plymouth express. A question that remains unanswered is whether there is a memorial at Hall Road, Liverpool, where 20 passengers were killed in a rear-end collision in 1905.
Overseas, a memorial was unveiled in 1998 at the site of the 1917 derailment at Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, near Modane, when at least 1,000 French soldiers were killed.
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