Whilst blog posts have largely reflected our project sources and focus, and looked at mainline railways in the UK and Ireland, this doesn’t capture all of the railway activity – and dangers – in our nations. Plenty of railway systems were privately-owned and operated – like the coal railways which came to be part of […]
Tag Archives | Scotland
Charles Stewart, 1806-1864
By Pauline Figliolini on August 30, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution
This guest blog post, from Pauline Figliolini, came about after Pauline had found the project and enquired about early staff accident records. Sadly we didn’t have further details to help directly, but we made a couple of suggestions and after a few emails back and forth Pauline not only found more information on her Great […]
More women – same accidents
Happy International Women’s Day 2021! This seems like a good moment to look forward to some of the data we’re working on behind the scenes, to see whether it’ll bring more women into the project records. We’ve written in the past about the seeming absence of women in accident records, as well as about some […]
19 January 1911 – a bad day on the permanent way
Some days on the railways were worse than others – in total, and for particular grades of workers. The 19th of January was one which fell into the ‘worse’ camp. Across the database as a whole, fifteen individuals were involved in accidents between 1911 and 1915. Nine of these were in 1911 alone, including seven […]
Dying to save her life
Our database is for the most part representative of the accidents incurred by British and Irish railway workers around the time of the First World War. However, there are some gaps. Some reflect the particular administrative structures of the time: staff in the workshops weren’t covered in the Railway Inspectorate reports, something discussed in an […]
Disability History Month: ‘very nervous and trembling a good deal’
Wednesday marks the start of 2020’s Disability History Month, something that our project speaks closely too, given the large numbers of railway staff who were made disabled in the course of their work. Over the years we’ve blogged about a number of cases involving disabled staff, detailed here, and over the coming month we’ll highlight […]
Dying for a wee – 1
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 […]
Further July multiples
We started our posts this month with another 2 cases of workers having 2 accidents each, with the promise (threat?) of more multiple accidents to come. It’s to this we return now, with another 2 cases of 2 accidents. We start on the south coast of England, at Brighton station appropriately on the London, Brighton […]
Illicit travel
The railways were highly ordered and regulated spaces. They had to be, to ensure they ran and that (for passengers at least) they ran safely. But that doesn’t mean illicit travel wasn’t a problem. The railway companies employed their own police forces, to keep order, protect company assets and reassure the public. Of course, railway […]
Edinburgh shunting accidents – a connection
In previous posts we’ve extolled the virtues of our database as a means of making connections between accidents, whether by location, company, grade of employee, circumstances or a host of other possibilities. In some cases, however, our work is done for us by the Inspectors’ reports – they too found these connections significant, as they […]
