As travellers today (when we’re able to resume travelling) we may be less than enamoured of the toilets on trains – all too often cramped, unclean or even out-of-order. But at least they’ve been provided for us. That isn’t always the case for staff – and that’s a long-standing issue. Earlier this year I wrote […]
Archive | Accident reports
The Accident at Willington Dene Viaduct
In the final part of this run of blog posts, NRM volunteer Philip James puts into context one of the cases he found when transcribing the most recent run of data. It’s another example of how the project takes us into unexpected places – this time, falls from height. As ever, our thanks to Philip […]
Barking, 1878
By Philip James on September 16, 2020 in Accident reports, Blog, Disability, Guest contribution, Local History
In this guest post, National Railway Museum volunteer Philip James takes us back into an era outside project coverage, and to an accident not usually seen by the project – a member of the public, but not a passenger. He also puts the accident location in its local context, something important for the project. Originally […]
14, learning the craft – the hard way
From time to time we’ve commented on the young age of some of the people encountered in our database – for example, the case of 16-year old James Beck. Given the school leaving age was 13 at this time, it’s unsurprising – if sad – that Beck’s case wasn’t the youngest we have encountered. There […]
Hadfield/ Hadfield – connecting people & place
How do we connect people & place in our database? Most of the time there are the obvious links: the cases our project is concerned with happened to real people, working in particular locations. On many occasions those locations had a material bearing on the circumstances of the accident – limited clearances, poor conditions, the […]
Thrown from their wagon
For some staff, getting to or from work was a matter of walking. For permanent way staff, who might be working on track many miles from where they were based, getting to the site of work might involve riding on or in wagons. That wasn’t without risk – as William Layton and William Day found […]
A one-way problem
Railway working produced all sorts of odd terms, specific to the industry. Some of these are less obvious than others – but one which might more easily be understood from the title is ‘tow-roping.’ Not dissimilar from towing a vehicle on the roads, tow-roping involved using a rope to pull a wagon or wagons. It […]
Contracting out accidents
In the past we’ve blogged about individuals appearing in our records but who weren’t employees of railway companies – detailed here, with an overview here. Some of these accidents happened to people who had reason to be around the railway (like coal merchants or Post Office staff) and some who were working on the railways […]
Speeding up death
Around the turn of the twentieth century, the main railway trades unions started complaining about ‘speeding up’: the intensity of work being increased, whether by more work being demanded in the same time or by the requirement operate bigger and more powerful machinery (particularly the locomotives). The unions concerned were the (brilliantly and entirely Victorian-named) […]
Look out!
This guest post comes from Arthur Moore, one of our longest-serving volunteers, based with the NRM team. Arthur has a lot to answer for, having contributed the first guest post the project featured, opening our eyes to the possibilities! This post comes out of Arthur’s work on the inter-war accident reports currently being prepared for […]
