Record revealed
Accident register for the North Eastern Railway Company
How dangerous was train travel in the 19th century? These record books reveal the substantial dangers to passengers – and for those operating trains – in the first decades that public railways existed.
Important information
This article contains descriptions of injuries and deaths caused by accidents on the railway system.
Images
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Cover of the North Eastern Railway Company accident register for 1860 to 1865.
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Pages from the accident register.
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Excerpt from the register dated 4 October 1863, recording the death of John McGaven.
Partial transcript
He had been drinking at the White Mare Pool public house until after 12 the night before and left there to walk on the railway to Usworth and it is supposed he was killed by the fast train leaving Newcastle at 2.20 am as he was found dead upon the line next morning.
Why this record matters
- Date
- 1860 to 1865
- Catalogue reference
- RAIL 527/955
You may not have heard of the North Eastern Railway Company. It was formed in 1854 when three smaller companies based around Yorkshire and the Northeast joined together, before eventually becoming part of the London & North Eastern Railway Company (LNER) in 1923.
We hold the company's correspondence and papers at The National Archives, as well as staff records, deeds, agreements, contracts, specifications, estimates and plans. Alongside these sit two early volumes of accident registers, running from 1855 to 1865.
The volume shown here covers the years 1860 to 1865 and includes 629 casualties, of whom 505 were male, 119 female and five were not disclosed. 329 were railway staff, while 190 were passengers and a further 110 were noted as either trespassers or pedestrians. These range from cuts, contusions, scalds and sprains, to loss of body parts and fatalities. A surprisingly large number of people lost their lives. The register records 194 deaths, which is roughly 31% of all the casualties described.
John McGaven, for example, was last seen leaving a pub in Washington, Tyne and Wear, after midnight on 4 October 1863, and was ‘found dead upon the line the next morning’, having been knocked down by a fast train from Newcastle. Three years earlier, Price Kirton had been killed by a locomotive as he stepped out of the path of another. According to the accident book: ‘he was a passenger on the 11pm train from Newcastle and after leaving the train at Usworth, he proceeded along the line towards his home. In stepping from the Down Line to avoid an approaching coal train, he walked in front of the Market train from Newcastle by which he was knocked down’.
Health and safety seemed to be far less of a concern than it would be today. On 10 November 1861, injury resulted when seven-year-old Robert Storey, a passenger, fell out of a train in the vicinity of Hylton, County Durham. The accident report states that: ‘He fell from a 3rd Class Carriage of the 4:20pm train from Sunderland whilst the train was in motion and dislocated his shoulder and otherwise injured himself. The fastening of the carriage door was defective, and it is supposed that the motion of the train caused the door to fly open. He was taken back to the Infirmary at Sunderland where his injuries were attended to.’
Fourteen crashes and collisions are outlined in the register, mostly caused by poor visibility, driver error or signalling problems. There were also nine derailments. These were mainly the result of faulty tyres, wheels or axles, or broken rails.
One of these occurred on 10 February 1864 at the Goathland Incline, a rope-drawn section on the line between Whitby and Malton, North Yorkshire. The wire rope broke, resulting in ten casualties, including two fatalities, when ‘the whole of the train … got off the line’ and three carriages plummeted down the slope. A copy of the verdict of the coroner was added to the accident book, which records that ‘In the opinion of the Jury the rope was so much worn as to be unfit for the duty on which it was employed, and … there appears to have been no systematic or efficient examination of the said rope by the superior Officers of the Company.’
These accident books, along with those of other railway companies before 1948 – when they were nationalised and merged into British Railways – are a vital source of information about railway safety during the 19th century. They have been catalogued and the data can be found both on our catalogue, Discovery, and on the database of the Railway Work, Life & Death' project.