The Story of the Cambrian: A Biography of a Railway

by C. P. Gasquoine

Such occurrences, alas! are not entirely within the compass of human power to control, but, as a matter of fact, no such “similar accident” has during its history ever happened at Friog or anywhere else on the Cambrian system. It was, indeed, not for more than fourteen years that serious catastrophe

attended the working of the railway, and then the cause seems to have been as uncontrollable as ever. Late one Friday evening in June, 1897, a Sunday School excursion train from Royton in Lancashire, drawn by two engines, was returning from Barmouth, and, close to Welshampton station, only a few miles short of quitting the Cambrian at Whitchurch, left the rails, overturning several coaches and telescoping others. The circumstances were the more pathetic by reason of the fact that most of the passengers were children, homeward bound, after a joyous day by the sea. Nine were killed outright, two died later in hospital, and many others were more or less seriously injured. Dr. R. de la Poer Beresford of Oswestry, medical officer to the Cambrian Railway Co., and many other professional and lay helpers, rendered gallant service, and the railway ambulance corps were a valuable adjunct in the arduous task of dealing with the great work of tending the wounded.

There was some little difficulty in ascertaining the exact cause of the accident, but the Coroner’s jury were satisfied that there was “no negligence on the part of any of the officials,” and were of opinion that the disaster would not have happened but for a Lancashire and Yorkshire four-wheeled brake van in the front of the train, which, it was stated, had been “running rough.” Searchers after portents were quick to recal that in his famous “Almanack,” exactly opposite the actual date of the disaster, “Old Moore” had stated that he was “afraid he must foretell a terrible railway collision in the middle of June.” It was not a collision, but the gift of prophecy received sufficient endorsement to create no small sensation amongst country folk.

Nor is this part of our story, unfortunately, complete without reference to an actual head-on collision,—an occurrence extremely rare in British railway annals—of even more appalling

result in loss of life, than Welshampton. Of that day, early in 1921 when, through a most extraordinary and tragic series of misunderstandings amongst the staff at Abermule station the slow down train was allowed to proceed towards Newtown to meet the up express from Aberystwyth, on the curve a mile away, such vivid memories still linger that little need be recounted here of its harrowing details. The total death-roll, the largest in Cambrian records, was 17, and the victims included one of the most esteemed of the directorate, Lord Herbert Vane-Tempest. Here, at any rate, it was again that mysterious element, “the human factor,” rather than any condition of the works or of the rolling stock used which played its melancholy part, and of that it is sufficient to say that the most interesting feature of the protracted official inquiry into the circumstances was the fact that the men concerned were represented at the inquest by the Rt. Hon. J. H. Thomas, M.P., as General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, and his skilful conduct of the case was, apparently, a notable and important influence in determining the final—and reconsidered—verdict of the coroners jury.

III.

But these are sorrowful records from which we gladly turn to the lighter side of railway annals. As a link between them we may mention one “accident” which happily unattended with very serious results in itself, was the direct cause of a famous, and at the time, a sensational “incident.” In 1887 the down morning mail train ran off the line at Ellesmere and it was held that this was due to delay on the part of the porter in not being at the points in time to work them properly. For at this time the interlocking system, made compulsory under the Act of 1889, had not been installed,

and the safety of trains depended on due attention to the pointsman’s functions. When, in 1891, a Committee of the House of Commons, of which Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was chairman, sat to inquire into the length of railway hours, the Ellesmere mishap was brought up as an example of what occurred when railway servants were expected to work for long stretches, though Mr. John Conacher (who had joined the Company’s staff in 1865, become secretary on the retirement of Mr. George Lewis in 1882, and later had succeeded to the managership) was able to produce evidence that it was not so much weariness of the flesh as the fact that the porter was playing cards with a postman waiting with the mails and a stranded passenger waiting for the train which led to his late arrival at the points.

The porter was consequently dismissed, whereupon a memorial praying for his re-instatement was signed, amongst others, by the then Ellesmere stationmaster, the late Mr. John Hood. This appeared to the management so undesirable an attitude for a stationmaster to take in the matter of service discipline that he was temporarily suspended and removed from Ellesmere,—a step which, it was publicly explained, had been contemplated some years before the accident, but not carried out,—to Montgomery. Mr. Hood himself gave evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, alleging that the mishap was due to the rotten condition of the permanent way, and though this created a good deal of sensation and alarm, public assurance was promptly restored when it was pointed out that such a conclusion was entirely rebutted by the report issued by the Board of Trade Inspector as a result of his personal examination of the line immediately after the accident.