Qualla: 1940 Norton Fitzwarren Rail Crash

1940 Norton Fitzwarren Rail Crash: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Percy Stacey, an engine driver with forty years of unblemished service on the Great Western, went to work on the evening of 4 November 1940. The night before, German bombs had fallen on his house. He went anyway. By the time the 9:50 p.m. express from Paddington reached Taunton, after wartime delays and detours, it was an hour late. Stacey took his locomotive - GWR King Class 6028, King George VI - out of Taunton station on what he believed was the Down Main line. He was actually on the Down Relief. He never realised his mistake until another train overtook him in the dark, and by then there was no time to stop. The locomotive smashed through the trap points at the end of the slow line and ploughed into the ballast. The fireman died. Twenty-six passengers died with him.

1940 Norton Fitzwarren Rail Crash: A Man Who Came to Work

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Stacey's house had been bombed on the night of 3 November. The Battle of Britain was over but the night raids of the Blitz were ongoing, and in towns and villages across England men and women were going to work in the morning after watching their homes burn. Stacey's wartime empl...

1940 Norton Fitzwarren Rail Crash: The Geometry of Confusion

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The crash site was where four tracks merged into two. The fast lines ran in the centre. The slow lines, called Relief lines, ran on the outside. Great Western practice usually placed all signals on the same side of the track, typically to the right where the driver stood. At Nort...

1940 Norton Fitzwarren Rail Crash: Forty Miles an Hour

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Stacey realised his mistake only when the other train overtook him in the dark, racing past on what he had believed was a parallel track but was now revealed as his rightful one. By then his King-class locomotive was already approaching the trap points - a deliberate piece of tra...

1940 Norton Fitzwarren Rail Crash: Sir Alan Mount's Verdict

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Sir Alan Mount of the Railway Inspectorate conducted the inquiry. He found the signal arrangement confusing - the unusual left-side placement, the wartime conditions, the obscured layout in blackout. Yet his official conclusion placed the responsibility on Stacey himself. The 'so...

1940 Norton Fitzwarren Rail Crash: I'm a Murderer

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Sympathy for Stacey was widespread. His colleagues knew the conditions. His record spoke for itself. None of it reached him. When a reporter approached him for comment in the aftermath, he gave only one sentence: 'Don't talk to me, I'm a murderer.' He had lost his fireman, a man ...