CLAYTON TUNNEL ACCIDENT
Such were the incidents upon which the Christmas stories, of the type brought into favour by Dickens, were built, but the stories are better to read than the incidents to experience. I am retrospectively sorry for those passengers who thus lost their Christmas dinners; but after all, it was better to miss the turkey and the Christmas pudding than to be “mashed into a pummy” in railway accidents, such as the awful heart-shaking series of collisions which took place on Sunday, August 25th, 1861, in the railway tunnel through Clayton Hill. On that day, in that gloomy place, twenty-four persons lost their lives, and one hundred and seventy-five were injured.
Three trains were timed to leave Brighton station on that fatal morning, two of them filled to crowding with excursionists; the other, an ordinary train, well filled and bound for London. Their times for starting were 8, 8.5, and 8.30 respectively, but owing to delays occasioned by press of traffic, they did not set out until considerably later, at 8.28, 8.31, and 8.35. At such terribly short intervals were they started, in times when no block system existed to render such close following comparatively safe.
Clayton Tunnel was already considered a dangerous place, and there was situated at either end (north and south entrances) a signal-cabin furnished with telegraphic instruments and signal apparatus, by which the signalman at one end of the tunnel could communicate with his fellow at the other, and could notify “train in” or “train out” as might happen. This practically formed a primitive sort of “block system,” especially devised for use in this mile and a quarter’s dark burrow.
A “self-acting” signal placed in the cutting some distance from the southern entrance was supposed, upon the passage of every train, to set itself at “danger” for any following, until placed at “line clear” from the nearest cabin, but on this occasion the first train passed in, and the self-acting signal failed to act.
The second train, following upon the heels of the first, passed all unsuspecting, and dashed from daylight into the tunnel’s mouth, the signalman, who had not received a message from the other end of the tunnel being clear, frantically waving his red flag to stop it. This signal apparently unnoticed by the driver, the train passed in.
At this moment the third train came into view, and at the same time the signalman was advised of the tunnel being clear of the first. Meanwhile, the driver of the second train, who had noticed the red flag, was, unknown to the signalman, backing his train out again. A message was sent to the north cabin for it, “train in”; but the man there, thinking this to be a mere repetition of the first, replied, “train out,” referring, of course, to the first train.
The tunnel being to the southern signalman apparently clear, the third train was allowed to proceed, and met, midway, away from daylight, the retreating second train. The collision was terrible; the two rearward carriages of the second train were smashed to pieces, and the engine of the third, reared upon their wreck, poured fire and steam and scalding water upon the poor wretches who, wounded but not killed by the impact, were struggling to free themselves from the splintered and twisted remains of the two carriages.
The heap of wreckage was piled up to the roof of the tunnel, whose interior presented a dreadful scene, the engine fire throwing a wild glare around, but partly obscured by the blinding, scalding clouds of steam; while this suddenly created Inferno resounded with the prayers, shrieks, shouts, and curses of injured and scatheless alike, all fearful of the coming of another train to add to the already sufficiently hideous ruin.
Fortunately no further catastrophe occurred; but nothing of horror was wanting, neither in the magnitude nor in the circumstances of the disaster, which long remained in the memories of those who read and was impossible ever to be forgotten by those who witnessed it.