TUBE COLLISION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23010, 11 April 1938, Page 8

TUBE COLLISION

LONDON SENSATION dislocation of traffic CHAOS AMONG PASSENGERS [from our own correspondent] LONDON, March lit Two tube trains collided under the Thames between Waterloo and Charing Cross in the middle of the morning rush recently, and dislocated traffic for the whole day. Twelve people were treated for slight cuts and shock.

This collision —only the third in the 48 years' history of London's Underground —was caused by a human'failure after a slight breakdown in the "infallible" signalling system which safeguards travellers by Tube.

After the failure of the signal on the north-bound Morden-Edgware line a signal linesman was put on duty while the fault was made good. An incorrect signal "caused by an error ci judgment on the part of. the linesman," according to the official statement, resulted in one train running into the back of another. Chaos set in after the accident, as city workers, already late, fought to board the overladen trains on the Bakerloo line.

Hats were trodden underfoot, pareels crushed and coats torn as women struggled hand to hand with men to force a way into the carriages. Many who did get in were unable to push a way out again and were carried past their destination. Conditions were worst between Leicester Square and the Strain, where trains pulled up every few yards and were signalled into the Strand station by porters with lanterns. The first accident on the Tubes was at the Caledonian Road station in 1912, when one train ran into the back of another; the second was outside Hammersmith Broadway, above ground, in June, 1932. when two trains met sideon on converging lines.