Hawes Junction Rail Crash

The Hawes Junction rail crash occurred on 24 December 1910, between Hawes Junction and Ais Gill on the Midland Railway's Settle and Carlisle main line in Westmorland (now Cumbria), England. It was caused when a busy signalman (Sutton) forgot about a pair of light engines waiting at his down (northbound) starting signal to return to their shed at Carlisle. They were still waiting there when the signalman set the road for the down Scotch express. When the signal cleared, the light engines set off in front of the express into the same block section. Since the light engines were travelling at low speed from a stand at Hawes Junction, and the following express was travelling at high speed, a collision was inevitable. The express caught the light engines just after Moorcock Tunnel near Ais Gill summit in Mallerstang and was almost wholly derailed.

Casualties were made worse by the telescoping (over-riding) of the timber-bodied coaches, and by fire which broke out in the coaches, fed by the gas for the coaches' lights leaking from ruptured pipes and ignited by the coals from the locomotives' fireboxes. Twelve people lost their lives as a result of this accident, some of whom were trapped in the wreckage and were burned to death.