Although Transcription Tuesday is still a little way off, we’ve had a look at the first pages of the volume we’ll be working on, to test the transcription process and to get a sense of the stories it contains. Unsurprisingly, there are some serious, and sad, cases. Part of William Mercer’s entry in the ASRS […]
Archive | Accident reports
‘she was thrown violently down’
We’ve posted about accidents to women railway workers before (see here and here). Each time we’ve noted that there are relatively women in our data so far (here) – only 3 in our original data release of 3,928 cases, with a further 3 in our most recent release covering the Great Eastern Railway (GER) and […]
Frederick James Lovejoy – A tale of two accidents
By Sandra Gittins on December 17, 2018 in Accident reports, Blog, Disability, Guest contribution, Linking sources, War
In a timely guest post, Sandra Gittins draws on some of her research into railway workers on the Western Front of the First World War to look at one case of a chance accident – the circumstances really are quite incredible. What is good news is that Sandra will be writing a couple more posts […]
Fog, steam and speed: fireman Edward Booth’s gravestone
We’re going beyond the edges of the project in this post, to look at a passenger crash and its aftermath. This week it’s the anniversary of the Ulleskelf accident, which took place on 24 November 1906. It killed two railwaymen, the driver and fireman of the express train that ploughed into the back of a […]
A decade on & the trips continue
After many years of concern, the 1902 Prevention of Accidents Rules introduced several measures to improve railway worker safety. One was the requirement to cover or protect trip hazards like point rodding and signal wires. Whilst progress was made, it took time, as today’s case, which took place nearly a decade later, demonstrates. It took […]
Halloween: A mystery man, an eerie rabbit & a railway death
As we’re heading towards Halloween, it seems only fitting that we’ve a supernatural case, involving an accident to a railway worker, to bring to your attention. It’s a great demonstration of the promise of our project work, combined with digitisation and transcription of seemingly unrelated documents: the combination and linking of sources is very pleasing. […]
Burns Awareness – past & present
17 October is National Burns Awareness Day, organised by the British Burn Association, a charity set up in 1968 to educate and encourage research into all aspects of burn injury, its treatment and prevention. Some railway staff could have used the Association over 50 years previously, however, as they experienced burns as a part of […]
Monorail, monorail, monorail …
Most of the cases in our database are fairly standard – certainly in terms of being above ground and referring to ‘standard gauge’ track (the well-known 4 foot 8 and a half inches between rails, albeit the reasons for which are debated). However, there are some outliers – including accidents on underground railways (London and […]
The ‘excusable mistake’ that injured three
In many of the cases found in our database the Railway Inspectorate report provides an attribution of responsibility for the accident. Around a quarter of these mention things like a ‘lack of care’, and individuals’ ‘own want of reasonable care’ (even in one case their ‘stupid want of care’). What is less common is finding […]
Where has 1915 gone?
Have you been delving deep into the project database, following us on Twitter (@RWLDproject) or keeping a close eye on the ‘On this day’ Twitter feed on the homepage of the website? If so, and you were paying close attention, you might have noticed over the last 2 months or so you’ve not seen any […]
