Signalman's Dilemma

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 43, 21 February 1936, Page 7

Signalman's Dilemma

TRAIN OUT OF CONTROL QUICK DECISION SAVES LIVES LONDON, Jan. IS. A coal train of 4.5 waggons loaded with about SCO tons of coal slid out of control on the wet lines of a long incline and ran into a passenger train which was standing in Victoria station, Manchester, on a recent morning. A guard and nine passengers were injured. Dramatic features of the mishap were: An attempt by the fireman of the coal train, running beside it before it gathered speed, to apply the handbrakes of the waggons. The quick decision of a signalman to switch the runaway train to a platform where there was a train with only a few passengers, instead of into a crowded express. The London, Midland, and Scottish Railway Company issued the following explanation: “The engine of the freight train was apparently overpowered while descending the Miles Platting incline/’ The incline is a mile and a-quarter long and slopes at a gradient of one in 59 toward the station. The man who attempted to stop the runaway was Fireman Hollins, of the coal train. When he realised that his train was sliding out of control he jumped from the engine and tried desperately to apply the brakes to the coal waggons. Running as fast as he could, he kept up with the train as long as possible, applying the hand brakes, until the train, with its speed ever increasing, left him behind. Meanwhile the driver pluckily stuck to his post, endeavouring, without success, to pull up the train. It was Arthur Shipley, a signalman in the main signal box on the north side of Victoria Station, who was faced with a difficult alternative. When he saw the train, now at high speed, coming down the incline, he had to decide whether to allow it to run into platform 13 or platform 14. The 9.45 express train, with a large number of passengers, was standing in platform 13. He therefore elected to switch the runaway into platform 14, where there were only three coaches and the guards van of the 9.54 slow train to Preston, knowing that fewer passengers would be imperilled by this course.