Clayton Tunnel Rail Crash - Causes

Causes

The catastrophe publicised the problem of trains travelling too close together, with signalmen having to appraise the situation too quickly for safety's sake. A simple communication mistake between the two signal boxes caused havoc that Sunday, but the telegraph was also blamed for the tragedy because it did not register without continual pressure on the switch. The signal, too, was also at fault for not returning to "danger" immediately after the train had passed. The accident encouraged the use of the block system (rather than the time interval system) for the remainder of the railway system.

One other aspect of this accident was that Signalman Killick was working a continuous 24 hour shift that day, rather than the regulation 18 hours in order to gain a complete day off duty. In his report on the accident Captain Tyler stated that " it was disgraceful that a man in so responsible a position as Signalman Killick should be compelled to work for twenty-four hours at a stretch in order to earn one day of rest a week."

Charles Dickens probably based his story "The Signal-Man" on this accident, dramatising the events (especially the bells and the telegraph needle), as well as adding other incidents. His own experience at the Staplehurst rail crash may have inspired him to write this ghost story. Readers of the story in December 1866 would likely have still remembered the Clayton accident.