Mystery of train crash children

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

"In the early hours of Saturday, October 13, 1928, the Leeds to Bristol night mail train crashed under the road bridge at Charfield station, South Gloucestershire.  Gas cylinders used to light the carriages blew up, and the fire was so savage that 12 who died were so badly decomposed that their relatives accepted the railway company's offer of a mass grave, which is still prominent in a corner of the village churchyard.  And it's on the memorial stone that the mystery lives on, for after listing 10 names and their places of origin, it ends with "Two Unknown". Despite a number of theories the true identity of the bodies is still unknown.

As the 80th anniversary of the tragedy draws near the Western Daily Press launches an appeal to anyone who might be able to finally uncover the mystery that has shrouded the crash for decades."

For full details, see http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Mystery-train-crash-children/article-294878-detail/article.html

[Electric train]

Although there is not a copy of the accident report some info here http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=96

[G.Uard]

Thisisbristol say

"According to sources, signalman Henry Button accepted the train from the Berkeley Junction and put the distant signal to danger.

That should have halted the express until a freight train had reversed into sidings.

But driver Henry Aldington and his fireman, Frank Want, both read the distant signal as clear instead of danger and ran headlong into horror."

Distant signals can't show 'danger', only clear or caution.  As such, a distant at caution could not have stopped the express, but only served to warn that the next stop signal, (situated at a safe braking distance), was at danger.  Naturally, the driver, had he read the distant,  should have slowed his train in preparation for the stop signal, but passing the distant could not in itself have been the cause of the accident. The driver of the express must also have passed the subsequent stop signal to collide with the freight train.

[bobm]

Although there is not a copy of the accident report some info here http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=96

There is a report now http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Charfield1928.pdf