Causes
The first eight wagons were equipped with the vacuum brake but the pipes had not been connected. The train had run from Ellesmere Port as an unbraked freight train and stopped at Helsby, where it needed to reverse. The guard had forgotten to connect the vacuum pipes when the locomotive coupled up to the opposite end of the train, so that extra brake power was available on the falling gradient into Chester. The driver had also omitted to carry out a brake test before departure.
Read more about this topic: Chester General Rail Crash