Worst accident since 1975

Press, 20 November 1987, Page 10

Worst accident since 1975

The death toll at King’s Cross — which has not been finalised — already is the worst on the London Underground since 43 people were killed at Moorgate on February 28, 1975.

Reuters, Agence France-Presse and the British Press Association news agencies said 27 bodies had been brought to the surface so far but AFP quoted Scotland Yard as saying at least 50 people had died. In the Moorgate disaster in 1975, a Tube train ploughed headlong into the end of the Northern Line branch tunnel.

Getting the 43 dead and the 74 injured out of the tunnel, a black hole of

twisted metal, was a sixday operation for more than 1300 firemen, 240 policemen, 80 ambulancemen and 16 doctors on the spot — plus a huge force of voluntary helpers and the staffs of three hospitals. London Transport described the 1975 crash as “a million-to-one chance”, but began installing safety signalling to ensure trains running too fast towards terminals would be stopped automatically. Such devices — the Underground has a highlyautomated, largely failsafe signalling system — has kept the system remarkably free of big accidents over the years.

Until Moorgate only 14 people had been killed in Underground accidents since 1938 — which with nearly three million passenger journeys a day, makes the Underground network one of the safest forms of transport in the world. Twelve of the 14 were in the previous big disaster, when a Central Line train crashed into the back of another between Stratford and Leyton stations in 1953. The worst disaster before that was in 1938, when a Circle Line train ran into a stationary District Line train near Charing Cross and six people were killed.

Probably the most

severe fire actually on an Underground train — Wednesday’s tragedy was in the station itself — broke out on the Central Line in July 1985. One passenger died and 47 others needed hospital treatment after suffering dense smoke and heat.

The highest casualty toll was caused by a German bomb in World War

Sixty-eight people were killed in 1940 when a German bomb hit the Balham station in south London.

The 124-year-old subway system, which runs below and in some places above the ground, has dirty and smelly stretches, especially in the crowded

stations of central London where 1250 public lavatories in the streets above have been closed in the last five years to cut costs. The system is undergoing renovation and modernisation.

Many of the 273 stations are being remodelled, with bright tile murals and new ticket offices, elevators and escalators.

The project has been bitterly attacked by some architectural historians and writers who say the innovative original designs between the two world wars by the architect, Frank Pick, are being vandalised by unimaginative and cost-cut-ting renovation.