Penistone rail accidents

Over the latter years of the 19th and early years of the 20th centuries, Penistone in Yorkshire gained a name as an accident black-spot on Britain's railway network; indeed, it could be said to hold the title of the worst accident black-spot in the country. The main line through the town was the Woodhead route of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway between Sheffield Victoria and Manchester, London Road. The line was heavily graded with a summit some 400 yards inside the eastern portal of the Woodhead tunnel.

Cattle Drover's Neglect, 1845 During a parliamentary committee meeting to debate the building of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, George Stephenson was asked if it would not be awkward should a train hit a cow. His now classic reply, given in his broad Northumbrian dialect, was to state "Oo, ay, very awkward for the COO!". On the evening of 6 October 1845 this assumption was dramatically put to the test. Shortly after leaving Dunford Bridge the Sheffield bound train struck a cow, which a drover from Penistone market had been unable to remove from the line. The impact caused the locomotive and carriages to derail and the cow was killed instantly. Such was the force of the accident that the cow was almost entirely cut in half. None of the passengers suffered any injuries other than some minor bruising, although the guard was more severely injured. A replacement train was dispatched from Sheffield and the passengers all completed their journey by two o'clock the following morning.

Bullhouse Bridge accident, 1884

The first major accident occurred on 16 July 1884, a few miles to the west of the town, near Bullhouse Colliery. The accident is often referred to as being at "Bullhouse Bridge", where the road to Huddersfield passes below the line. An express passenger train, the 12:30 pm from Manchester London Road to London King's Cross, with through carriages for Grimsby Docks in connection with the evening steamer sailing, had left Woodhead Tunnel and was gathering speed on the downhill gradient towards Penistone. The locomotive was 4-4-0 No. 434, built at Gorton Locomotive Works. As it entered the curve at Bullhouse, the driver felt the engine develop an uneasy roll, but before he could apply the brakes, he heard a crack. A driving wheel axle on the locomotive had snapped, and the resulting spread of the driving wheels distorted the track. The axle fracture was probably caused by metal fatigue. A Cheshire Lines Committee horsebox coupled behind the engine was derailed but remained upright. The coupling between the horsebox and the following carriages failed, and the first five GNR carriages (the London portion of the train) ran off the rails and down the embankment on the outside of the curve. The last five MS&L carriages (the Grimsby portion) were also derailed but suffered less damage. Nineteen passengers were killed at the scene. Five more later died in hospital, the last on 6 August. Many of the dead were women and the toll also included railway mechanical engineer Massey Bromley. The Inspector's report allowed that the accident "could not have been foreseen or prevented". It did however question, among other matters, the use of inside cranked axles, and the use of iron rather than steel for these important components.

Barnsley Junction accident, 1885 The next unfortunate incident took place on the other side of Penistone Station, between Huddersfield Junction and Barnsley Junction, within six months. On 1 January 1885 a special excursion train from stations in the Sheffield area to Liverpool (9 coaches) and Southport (9 coaches) was climbing towards Penistone. At the same time a train of empty coal wagons travelling in the opposite direction to return the wagons to collieries in South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire was descending the gradient and had just passed the Huddersfield Junction signal box when one of the wagons derailed. The driver of the locomotive applied his brakes and this wagon, Shireoaks No. 218, jumped forward and became buffer-locked with the wagon in front, Shireoaks No. 1, which also came off the rails, and struck the locomotive of the excursion. The wagon was brushed aside by the locomotive but rebounded after the first four of the excursion's carriages passed. The fifth, sixth and seventh carriages were wrecked and the following three were brought off the track. Four passengers were killed in the accident and 47 others were injured, many of them very seriously. On examination, Shireoaks No. 218 wagon was found to have a fractured axle with two flaws in the metal, a problem again caused by metal fatigue. Unexpected catastrophic failure of axles (and wheels) was a problem on all railway vehicles at the time, owing to the lack of understanding of the causes, especially fatigue crack initiation and growth. Crack initiation was usually caused either by defects or poor design, with stress concentrations raising the local stress to failure. The small crack so created would then grow slowly under repeated loading from usage until the axle could no longer withstand imposed loads. (It was noted that the day of the Barnsley Junction accident was very cold and the ballast under the railway sleepers was frozen, increasing the loads on the wheels and axles.) Although the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway could not be held directly responsible for this accident, the enquiry recommended more thorough inspection of all rolling stock.

Huddersfield Junction accident, 1889

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