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| Details | |
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| Date and time: | 28 February 1975 08:46 |
| Location: | Moorgate |
| Rail line: | Northern Line (Highbury Branch) (London Underground) |
| Cause | Unknown |
| Statistics | |
| Trains: | 1 |
| Deaths: | 43+ |
| List of UK rail accidents by year List of UK rail accidents by death toll |
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The Moorgate tube crash was a railway disaster on the London Underground, which occurred at 8:46am on 28 February 1975.
A southbound train on the Northern Line (Highbury Branch) crashed into the tunnel end beyond the platform at Moorgate station. Forty-three people were killed at the scene, either from the impact or from suffocation, and several more subsequently died from severe injuries; the greatest loss of life in peacetime on the London Underground, and the second greatest loss of life on the entire London Transport system (the first being the 7 July 2005 London bombings). The cause of the incident was never conclusively determined.[1]
The crash had two consequences for the London Underground. Firstly, the southern end of the Highbury Branch platforms (where the crash happened) was extensively rebuilt. Secondly, automatic systems for stopping trains were introduced into dead-ends on the tube, regardless of whether the driver brakes the train. These systems are known as Moorgate control.
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Contents
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Details of the incident
The train was the 8:39 am from Drayton Park on the Highbury Branch, terminating at platform nine of Moorgate station seven minutes later. At that time plans were afoot for the service, previously known as the Great Northern & City Railway and then as the Northern City Line, to be transferred to British Railways. (It is now operated by First Capital Connect). The train was formed of two three-car units of 1938 tube stock. The leading unit comprised driving motor 11175, trailer 012263 and driving motor 10175.[1] The trailing unit comprised driving motor 11115, trailer 012167, driving motor 10015.[1]
Instead of braking on arrival the train seemed to accelerate, taking the crossover at about 35 miles per hour (56 km/h). At the end of the platform was a 66 feet (20 m) long overrun tunnel with a red stop-lamp, then a sand drag, and finally a single hydraulic buffer in front of a brick wall. The sand drag slowed the train but it smashed into the buffer at about 40 mph and then into the wall. The first emergency call was received at 8:53 am.
The incident would have not been so bad[citation needed] had the train been in a tube-sized tunnel, but the overrun tunnel was built to surface line loading gauge trains and was 16 feet (4.9 m) high. The smaller diameter of the tube train meant that the second car in the set rode up above the trailing end of the driving car (telescoping), and landed on top of it. The third car split apart lengthwise and rode over the end of the second car. The driving car suffered the most damage, buckling at two points into a V shape, crushed between the wall and the weight of its train piling up behind it.
The recovery process was exceptionally difficult because of the confined space, tangled wreckage, heat and lack of air. It was over 12 hours before the last survivor was freed, and four days before the front cab could be reached and the body of the driver, Leslie Newson, recovered. All the emergency services were highly commended for their efforts throughout.
Possible causes
The cause of the crash was never satisfactorily determined. The 56-year-old driver, Leslie Newson, had worked for London Underground since 1969, was in good health and took no alcohol or drugs. Police investigation showed that he had no reason to be suicidal and had £300 in his pocket, which he was intending to use to buy a car for his daughter after the end of his shift.
Newson was shown to have still been holding the dead man's handle, a device that immediately applies the brakes when released. Not only had he not even put his hands up to protect his face from the impact, but some witnesses even claimed that he had actually increased the speed of the train. The state of the motor control gear as found after the accident indicated that power had been applied to the motors up to a point within 2 seconds of the collision.
The autopsy found no evidence of a medical problem such as a stroke or heart attack that could have incapacitated Newson; he did not appear to have taken alcohol, although post mortem testing for this was hampered by the 4½ days it took to retrieve his body from the wreckage. Dr P A B Raffle, the Chief Medical Officer of London Transport, gave evidence to the inquest and the official enquiry that Newson might have been temporarily paralysed by a rare kind of brain seizure (known as "akinesis with mutism" or "transient global amnesia"). In this situation, the brain continues to function and the individual remains aware although they cannot physically move. This would certainly go some way towards explaining why Newson held down the dead man's handle right up until the point of impact and made no attempt to shield his face. This explanation also supports witness statements that Newson was sitting upright in his seat and looking straight ahead as the train passed through the station.
On the other hand, railway writer Piers Connor, himself a former driver who knew Newson slightly, has suggested[2] that his attention simply wandered from his driving at exactly the wrong moment (this was also the most likely explanation for a similar accident to an empty train at Tooting Broadway in 1971). Arguing against this theory is the fact that the unusually high speed on the crossover track threw many passengers from their seats and some standing passengers fell to the floor: had Newson's mind been elsewhere, presumably this jolt would have brought him around.
According to the writer Laurence Marks — whose father died in the disaster and who spent a year investigating it for The Sunday Times and later broadcast a Channel 4 documentary Me, My Dad and Moorgate on 4 June 2006 — the accident was deliberate. He points to Newson's driver error in overrunning a platform at least once before the accident as a "dry run" for his own suicide. Although this theory was rejected by the coroner's jury whose verdict was accidental death, the Department of Environment official report stated (at para 101): "[T]he possibility that the collision was the outcome of a deliberate, suicidal act cannot be ignored, although there is no positive evidence to support it."[1] Newson was not a heavy drinker, and the traces of alcohol found in his stomach were, according to Marks, the result of the Dutch courage required to see the act through. However, the pathological reports presented to the enquiry explained it was wholly possible that Newson's stomach contents could have fermented during the 4 days his body was trapped in the stifling heat of the tunnel. This would explain the presence of trace amounts of alcohol.
Moorgate control
The accident led to the introduction of automatic controls to prevent the incident occurring again. The system, known as Moorgate Control on National Rail, or TETS (Trains Entering Terminal Stations) on the London Underground, was introduced on all dead end tunnels and termini throughout the underground system. It was also installed on the main-line trains that now use the former Northern Line platforms 9 and 10 at Moorgate.
Moorgate Control consists of a pair of standard train stop units as used to halt trains that pass red signals. One is installed at the entry to the station platform and one about half-way along the platform. The train stops are normally in the raised position. As a train approaches, it moves onto a section of track that initiates a time delay. At the conclusion of the delay, the train stop is lowered allowing the train to pass. The time delay is such that if the train is travelling at more than 10 mph (16 km/h) its trip cock will hit the train stop before it lowers. This exhausts the air from the braking system applying the emergency brakes. Both train stops have to be lowered to allow the train to leave the station.
In the scheme as originally proposed, the train stops were augmented by a resistor in the traction current supply that was intended to prevent the driver from accelerating once he had passed either (or both) train stops. The first run of the trial (the re-acceleration test) was initially heralded as a success as the driver indeed could not accelerate. However, it was then discovered that the train was trapped in the trial siding unable to leave. The resistor was not included in the scheme as implemented.
Moorgate Control is based on a special feature of the signalling system used on the City Railway in Sydney, New South Wales, since 1932.[3][4] Timer-controlled train stops are positioned at and between signals and, used in conjunction with a special Low Speed signal indication,[5][6] they provide for protected reduced overlap operation in areas signalled for close headways. It was conceived by the English signal engineer, Mr C.B. Byles, who worked for New South Wales Government Railways from 1911 until 1929. Although this system aroused great interest in the UK at the time of its introduction, it was not adopted until after the Moorgate incident.
Consequences for main line railways
The then national rail company, British Rail, became concerned at the possibility of a similar event happening at a terminus. An early consequence was to change the signalling system so that a colour light signal would not show green on approach to a dead-end terminus. This effectively regarded the fixed stop light at the buffers as part of the signalling system and required an appropriate 'caution' aspect to be displayed at the preceding signal. The displaying of a caution aspect in turn caused the Automatic Warning System horn to be sounded if AWS was fitted. This had to be acknowledged or the train brakes would be automatically applied. The eventual adoption of slow speed control when approaching dead-end platforms as part of Train Protection & Warning System can be traced back to the Moorgate tube crash.
References
- Holloway, Sally (1988). Moorgate: Anatomy of a Railway Disaster. David and Charles. ISBN 0-7153-8913-0.
- Croome, D. & Jackson, A. Rails Through The Clay — A History Of London's Tube Railways (2nd. ed. 1993), London, Capital Transport Publishing, ISBN 1-85414-151-1.
- BBC News account of the 1975 crash
- ^ a b c d McNaughton, Lt Col I K A (4 March 1976). "Report on the Accident at Moorgate Station" (PDF). Department of the Environment. http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoE_Moorgate1975.pdf. Retrieved 2008-09-20.
- ^ In this Usenet posting and in Underground News (London Underground Railway Society) #554, February 2008, page 113.
- ^ Dargan, James: Safe Signals - A History of N.S.W. Railway Signalling, 1989
- ^ Macfarlane, Ian: Railway Safety - Interlocking and Train Protection; Engineers Media, Sydney, 2004
- ^ State Rail Authority of New South Wales: Basic Safeworking Manual, 1993
- ^ Rail Infrastructure Corporation (now RailCorp) Network Rules, 2002
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