Qualla: Winwick rail crash

Winwick rail crash: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Signalman Bloor was busy. Seven trains were within his patch of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway on the evening of 28 September 1934, and his hands were on the levers in the Winwick Junction signal box while the telephone rang for an eighth time. The call was about a rearrangement of running orders, a perishable-goods express full of fish that needed to overtake the slower traffic. Outside, in the dark, a local passenger train from Warrington to Wigan stood at his home signals, waiting. The fireman of that train had climbed down and started walking the 172 yards to the signal box to remind Bloor of his presence, as Rule 55 required. Before the fireman could arrive, Bloor cleared his signals for the express to come through. He had forgotten the local was there. Eleven people died.

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Winwick rail crash: The Booking Lad's Quiet Failure

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Signal boxes on busy junctions did not run on one person's memory. They ran on two, and on paper. Bloor had a booking lad with him in the cabin that night, a young man named E. Derbyshire whose job was to maintain the train register, ticking off each movement so that the signalma...

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Winwick rail crash: The Express That Caught the Local Moving

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Driver Hope, in the cab of the stationary local, saw his home signals clear. He notched the regulator forward to crawl back into motion, intending to pick up his fireman at the signal box. He had no way of knowing that the Euston-to-Blackpool express, drawn by LNWR Prince of Wale...

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Winwick rail crash: What the Inspector Recommended

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Colonel A. C. Trench, the Ministry of Transport's Inspecting Officer, delivered a report that focused on system rather than blame. Booking lads, he wrote, must be drilled to know that any register entry not made from direct observation must be verified with the signalman. Signal ...

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Winwick rail crash: The Junction That Kept Failing

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Winwick Junction had one more lesson to teach. In July 1967 a passenger diesel multiple unit ran past a semaphore signal at danger and collided with a goods train. There were no fatalities this time. The investigation found that the semaphore arm had jammed at about seventeen deg...

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