Staplehurst Rail Crash - Derailment

Derailment

On 9 June 1865 the daily boat train to London left Folkestone between 2:36 pm and 2:39 pm, having taken on board passengers from the tidal cross-channel ferry from France. A steam locomotive and tender hauled a brake van, a second class carriage, seven first class carriages, two second class carriages and three brake vans carrying eighty first class and thirty-five second class passengers. Three of the brake vans contained a guard and these were able to communicate with the driver using a whistle on the engine. Just after the train passed Headcorn railway station at 45–50 miles per hour (72–80 km/h), the driver saw a red flag. He whistled for the brakes and reversed his engine, but the locomotive and brakesmen were unable to stop the train before it derailed at 3:13 pm crossing the Beult viaduct, where a length of track had been removed during engineering works.

The 10-foot (3.0 m) high viaduct, with eight openings each 21 feet (6.4 m) wide, crossed over a mostly dry river bed at the time of the accident. The locomotive, tender, van and second class carriage made it across and remained coupled the first first class carriage, the other end of which rested in the dry river bed. The next seven carriages ended up in the muddy river bed and the last second class carriage remained coupled to the trailing vans, the last two of which remained on the eastern bank. There were ten fatalities, forty people injured and seven carriages were destroyed, either in the derailment or when rescuing passengers.

The Board of Trade report, published on 21 June 1865, found that for the previous eight to ten weeks a team of eight men and a foreman had been renewing the timbers under the track on viaducts between Headcorn and Staplehurst railway stations. The track would be removed when no train was due, however on 9 June the foreman had misread his timetable as to the schedule that day of the tidal boat train. Regulations required a man with a red flag to be 1,000 yards (910 m) away, but the labourer was only 554 yards (507 m) away, having counted telegraph poles that were unusually close together, and the train had insufficient time to stop. There had also been no notification to the driver about the track repairs in the area.