BRIGHTON EXPRESS DISASTER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1910, Page 9

BRIGHTON EXPRESS DISASTER.

STORY OF A LOOSE WHEEL. SIGNALMAN'S EFFORT TO STOP TRAIN. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 4th February. The Brighton to London express "met with a terrible disaster on Saturday evening. The train was entering Stoat's Nest station, three miles south of Croydon, when one of the carriages overturned, and resulted in the death of seven people, and serious injury to nine others. When the Board of Trade enquiry was opened on Tuesday some interesting evidence was given," which led one to believe that a wheel of one' of the carriages had shifted on its axle. Thr carriage consequently did not run truly on the rail, and thus caused the deVaifment John Thomsett, the driver cf the train, said that the first he knew of anything being amiss was just after passing the facing-points at Stoat's Nest, when he felt the automatic brake applied. He thought one of the brake-pipes had burst, bat finding he could not keep the pressure up he looked round, ana discovered the train had parted. The train was then running at 45 miles an hour. A SHOWER OF SPARKS. Arthur Knight, signalman at Stoat's Nest, told a remarkable story. When the train was still about 100 yards on the Brighton side of his box he saw sparks flying from underneath one of the coaches. The train took the facing points without mishap, but a few yards farther on this coach shot off the rails, and those behind it were derailed. The sparks were- like those from a blacksmith c anvil, and they were making a hissing sound. Witness at once went to the instrument to give the signal, "Stop and examine train," but before he could do so the accident had happened. Mr. Alfred Chalker, stationmaster at Stoat's Nost, said he heard & noise, and on looking round he saw tho derailed carriage slipping up the slope of the down local through platform. It was travelling broadside. It knocked over the water column. Many witnesses stated that the point a were m perfect condition Only two hours before the accident they were examined, and the smash left them uninjured. The train was examined before leaving Brighton, by H. Batchelor, train examiner for eighteen years. He looked under every carriage to see the condition of tho wheels .and his examination was so close that had anything been amiss he felt certain he would have detected It. THE DAMAGED WHEEL. Mr. D. Earle Marsh, locomotive and carriage engineer, said that after the disaster he "found that the front wheel ou the first derailed coach had shifted an inch outwaids. The shift was obsolutely new, the "surface where the wheel had been on the axle showing a bright metal-to-metal contact. As the wheel was pressed on (o the axle with a pressure of sixty tons, it must have taken an eonrmous blow to have moved it. If the wheel shifted outward before the accident, it would account for the sparks seen by the signalman. The outer rim of the tyre had been grinding against the bogie frame to such an extent that tilt frame had at some time been redhot, and had been ground away for quite an inch. The frame was not only giound away, but was bulged out as a result of the pressure of the wheel. He had never Known a modern carriage wheel such as this one to shift on the axle in such a way. The ' wheel must have shifted during the journey from Brighton, but he could not think of any cause. Heating of the boxes or an abnormally heavy blow were the only causes to whicli he could attribute such an occurrence, and there was 5« evij dencc of either. The wheels of carriages on the Brighton railway were the most costly in the Kingdom. The Inspector : May I take it as your opinion that if the wheel shifted before the derailment, that shifting may have been the cause of the derailment? Witness : Yes. If it could be proved that tho wheel shifted before the derailment I should accept that as the cause, j but if it were shifted before the pointi were negotiated, it must have had a tremendous blow somewhere on the journey from Brighton. The enquiry was then closed.