The Sevenoaks railway accident occurred on 24 August 1927 between

Dunton Green railway station Dunton Green railway station is on the South Eastern Main Line in England, serving the village of Dunton Green, Kent. It is down the line from London Charing Cross and is situated between and stations. Trains calling at the station are ope ...

and

Sevenoaks railway station Sevenoaks railway station is a railway station on the South Eastern Main Line in England, serving the town of Sevenoaks, Kent. It is down the line from London Charing Cross and is situated between and stations. Trains calling at the station ...

. The Southern Railway's afternoon express from

Cannon Street Cannon Street is a road in the City of London, the historic nucleus of London and its modern financial centre. It runs roughly parallel with the River Thames, about north of it, in the south of the City. It is the site of the ancient London ...

Deal A deal, or deals may refer to: Places United States * Deal, New Jersey, a borough * Deal, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * Deal Lake, New Jersey Elsewhere * Deal Island (Tasmania), Australia * Deal, Kent, a town in England * Deal, ...

left London at 5 pm, hauled by River Class tank engine No 800 ''

River Cray The River Cray is the largest tributary of the Darent. It is the prime river of outer, south-east Greater London, rising in Priory Gardens, Orpington, where rainwater percolates through the chalk bedrock of the Downs to form a pond where the ...

''. Several passengers later recounted that from time to time the train seemed to roll excessively on fast curves. As it passed through

Pollhill Pollhill is a hamlet in the parish of Harrietsham near the town of Maidstone in Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to ...

Tunnel at 60 mph the rocking became violent and the train derailed past

, where the line is in a cutting which is spanned by a bridge carrying Shoreham Lane. The cab of the locomotive struck the bridge and the engine was turned on its side across the cutting. The leading coaches piled up against it, killing 13 and injuring many more. Railway engineer Brigadier-General Archibald Jack was a survivor of the crash.

John Wallace Pringle Colonel Sir John Wallace Pringle, CB, FRGS (23 May 1863 – 16 July 1938) was a British engineer who was Chief Inspecting Officer of the Railways Inspectorate of the Ministry of Transport from 1916 to 1929. As such he was in charge of investigatio ...

, Chief Inspecting Officer of

Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate Established in 1840, His Majesty's Railway Inspectorate (HMRI) is the organisation responsible for overseeing safety on Britain's railways and tramways. It was previously a separate non-departmental public body, but from 1990 to April 2006 it ...

conducted the inquiry in person. Following the accident, the Southern Railway withdrew all the remaining 'River' class tank engines, which caused a public sensation at the time. Other drivers testified about the instability of the class and it emerged that one locomotive had previously derailed at speed, though it had re-railed itself. The engines' high centre of gravity, their hard springing, and the tendency for the water in the

side tank A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locomot ...

s to surge, all caused the engines to roll dangerously at speed, so much so that in this accident the nearside wheels had lifted. Trials carried out after the accident showed that the design behaved well when running at 85 mph on the

Great Northern Great Northern may refer to: Transport * One of a number of railways; see Great Northern Railway (disambiguation). * Great Northern Railway (U.S.), a defunct American transcontinental railroad and major predecessor of the BNSF Railway. * Great ...

main line out of King's Cross, indicating that an indifferent permanent way was partly responsible for the instability of the locomotives. However, before the results of the trials had been published, all River class engines had been rebuilt, becoming the first 20 of the

SR U class The SR U class are 2-6-0 steam locomotives designed by Richard Maunsell for passenger duties on the Southern Railway (SR). The class represented the penultimate stage in the development of the Southern Railway's 2-6-0 "family", which improved u ...

2-6-0 tender engine design. File:Accident ferroviaire de Sevenoaks - voiture Pullman.jpg, Wrecked coaches against the bridge. File:Accident ferroviaire de Sevenoaks - voiture détruite.jpg, Wrecked coach. File:Accident ferroviaire de Sevenoaks - locomotive A800-photo1.jpg, The overturned locomotive.

References

Sources

External links

Official report
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sevenoaks Railway Accident Railway accidents and incidents in Kent Railway accidents in 1927 1927 in England Sevenoaks Accidents and incidents involving Southern Railway (UK) 1920s in Kent Derailments in England 1927 disasters in the United Kingdom August 1927 events