Eyersey468
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Apart from the 1915 crash at Quintinshill are there any other railway accidents where it turned out signallers had falsified records?
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Signallers falsifying records
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I’ve recently been reading reports from the early 60s and irregularities in the signalling book have come up more than a couple of times. Often it’s things like pre-emptively writing down the time of a particular bell signal being sent.
For example after the 1963 fatal accident at Dorridge, the Train Register Book entries made by the signaller were examined. The timespan in question was only one month, and they found hundreds of irregularities, including 3 instances of trains being entered in the book that never actually ran!
For example after the 1963 fatal accident at Dorridge, the Train Register Book entries made by the signaller were examined. The timespan in question was only one month, and they found hundreds of irregularities, including 3 instances of trains being entered in the book that never actually ran!
Eyersey468
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@Adoarable Thank you I hadn't heard of this accident before. I wonder why he entered trains in the book that hadn't actually ran.
Gloster
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All sorts of reasons: a reluctance to get out of a chair to acknowledge a bell, nipping out and filling in by guess work when you get back, getting on with something else and then filling in by (inaccurate) memory, etc. All the same, I find it hard going to work out how you can include a train that didn’t run. Completely missing out one that did run is possible, but the opposite... Filling in a time in advance is also a bit dodgy, as if there is a problem you have got to alter it. I felt that supervision at Dorridge must have been lax.
The accident at Irk Valley Junction in 1953 jumps immediately to mind - https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Irk1953.pdf
Eyersey468
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Didn't Dan cover this one? I'll have a look later on.
Eyersey468
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Oh sorry, the guy who does the Signals to Danger podcasts, sorry I can't think what his user name is on here
Mcr Warrior
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Think he's @tpfx89 on here.
Gloster
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I don’t think that Quintinshill was actually falsifying entries. My recollection is that to disguise the fact that the signalmen were changing over after the official time, the night man would copy down the times on a piece of paper. The day man would copy them into the register when he came on duty so that the handwriting was correct for whoever should have been on duty. It was because the day man was paying more attention to writing in these (correct) times than what he was doing that the accident occurred.
Eyersey468
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That's the one.
Sorry I was simplifying it a bit. Yes it's true that in the case of Quintinshill the times were correct they just weren't written down in the register at the same time.
ChiefPlanner
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There was a rear ender on Merseyrail , (forget now) - where the diligent checking of train registers yielded an unbelievable amount of discrepancies , indicative of a busy service and probably extreme boredom on the part of the signallers of the period.
Remember as a trainee doing multiple box visits with the DI's in the Cardiff Divison as was , and they were incredibly diligent in checking the TRB's on the day , and in arrears (and telling the s/men they were doing it - and giving praise where due)
We dd find one box (which will remain nameless) - where the s/man had sketched some Disney characters in the "sacred" book. We were asked to go away for some time , but the "conversation" could be heard from some distance..
Remember as a trainee doing multiple box visits with the DI's in the Cardiff Divison as was , and they were incredibly diligent in checking the TRB's on the day , and in arrears (and telling the s/men they were doing it - and giving praise where due)
We dd find one box (which will remain nameless) - where the s/man had sketched some Disney characters in the "sacred" book. We were asked to go away for some time , but the "conversation" could be heard from some distance..
Gloster
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Probably ‘near Hall Road’ (that accident black spot) on 4 July 1977. Sorry, I can’t do a link to the report on the Railways Archive site.
Here’s the link @Gloster:
Report on the Collision that occurred on 4th July 1977 near Hall Road Station in the London Midland Region British Railways :: The Railways Archive
Archive of UK railways documents
I remember an old traffic inspector telling me that a signalman on his patch many decades ago couldn‘t bear to see a mistake in the book so if he made one he would cut out the page with a razor blade(!) and copy all the previous entries back into it, even going as far as signing the other signalmen’s names on and off duty.
1967 Conington accident, entries in the register were not what happened, detailed scrutiny showed.
I've written here before about how the 2013 Athelney crossing accident report, with details taken from the "infallible auto-logged power box register" do not appear to add up.
I've written here before about how the 2013 Athelney crossing accident report, with details taken from the "infallible auto-logged power box register" do not appear to add up.
ChiefPlanner
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Here’s the link @Gloster:
Report on the Collision that occurred on 4th July 1977 near Hall Road Station in the London Midland Region British Railways :: The Railways Archive
Archive of UK railways documentswww.railwaysarchive.co.uk
Thanks - it does make unsettling reading - the Cardiff area DI's were very aware of this incident (clearly been well briefed) - and followed through in their very thorough manner. (as they had pretty much always done)
Down in the restored box at St Albans South we have a selection of old TRB's and when I have the time , I have trawled through them out of interest , and they seem to be thoroughly kept - but then a location which had a rear ender or 2 in the section not long before the end.....!!!!
We are coming up to the 71st anniversary of the crash between Pollockshields & Queen's Park:
www.railwaysarchive.co.uk
The crash occurred on Cup Final day; one of the trains involved was a football special. One signalman had irregularly ended his shift early to attend the Final, leaving a newly-qualified signalman who had never taken sole charge responsible for the box. The investigation of the accident which ensued brought several more examples to light.
Report on the Collision which occurred on 21st April 1951 between Pollokshields East and Queen's Park in the Scottish Region British Railways :: The Railways Archive
Archive of UK railways documents
The crash occurred on Cup Final day; one of the trains involved was a football special. One signalman had irregularly ended his shift early to attend the Final, leaving a newly-qualified signalman who had never taken sole charge responsible for the box. The investigation of the accident which ensued brought several more examples to light.
Gloster
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Most that I have seen were books, but on the Southern Region we had loose-leaf pads. I have just looked at an old LMR one from the late 1950s and that had 99 pairs of pages. Even at a quiet box, what with entries such as signing on and off, opening and closing, time check, etc., you would rarely get more than three days per pair of pages: entries for different days usually had several lines between them and Up and Down would start opposite each other. Therefore you got up to about a year from each, but the timespan might be longer as a book might be withdrawn for checking and another (re)started, until that one was in turn withdrawn and the first (or another) used.
Big Jumby 74
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My old TR's were of the loose leaf type (SR suburban area), Down line on the left hand side, Up on the right, which matched the way my desk faced the frame/diagram with the running lines behind me as it were. Looking back another regret, is that on revisiting my old box after it had closed (an empty shell as it was by then) I found a rolled up batch of old TR sheets, half of which were in my hand writing, but I just wasn't bothered at the time, so left them where they were.......what a plonker!
Eyersey468
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Only one I can think of at Hull was the one in 1927 where the Scarborough and Withernsea trains collided head on
D6130
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The only TR that I have in my possession - that from Helensburgh Upper from January 1968 until its closure as a block post in June of that year - is a soft cover bound volume.
are the pages pre-numbered?
Eyersey468
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What happened to the TRs once the book was full or a box closed?
D6130
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Not sure about the official rule....but the one from Helensburgh Upper was placed in the bottom of the booking office safe - whence I 'liberated' it about six years later.
Just read the accident report and thats not it.
Prob not Hull then
Gloster
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I think that books were supposed to be retained for two years after they were completed. Usually they just got shoved in a cupboard, in the booking-desk or on a shelf until a clear out was needed. I don’t know of any specific regulations for when a box closed. They were presumably supposed to be kept, but it probably wasn’t clear by whom. A conscientious station master or operations manager might collect them, but for the most part it is likely that they were just dumped with everything else not earmarked for recovery.
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