The Thorpe rail accident occurred on 10 September 1874, when two trains were involved in a head-on collision at
Thorpe St Andrew
Thorpe St Andrew is a town and civil parish in the Broadland district of Norfolk, England. It is situated on the River Yare, two miles east of the centre of Norwich, and is outside the boundary of the city. The civil parish has an area of and ...
in the
English
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county of
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
.
The accident occurred on what was then a single-track rail line between
Norwich railway station
Norwich railway station (formerly Norwich Thorpe) is the northern terminus of the Great Eastern Main Line in the East of England, serving the city of Norwich, Norfolk. It is down the main line (measured via Ipswich) from London Liverpool ...
and . The two trains involved were the 20:40 mail from
Yarmouth
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**Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
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and the 17:00 express from London to Yarmouth. The latter had left
Norwich Thorpe at 21:30 and would normally have had a clear run on its way to Yarmouth, since the mail train should have been held on a loop line at Brundall to allow the express to pass. On this occasion trains were running late.
In such circumstances, when the timetable was upset, drivers had to have written authority to proceed further. Due to a series of errors (primarily, the telegraph clerk sending the authorization message before it had been signed by the appropriate official), both drivers received their authority, and anxious to make up for lost time, set off at speed along the single track. The accident, when it occurred around 21:45, resulted in both locomotives rearing into the air, and carriages reduced to wreckage.
Both drivers and firemen were killed, as were 17 passengers with 4 later dying from their injuries.
[''Derail: Why Trains Crash'' by Nicholas Faith, page 44, publ 2000 by ]Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
books, . 73 passengers and two railway guards were seriously injured.
![Site of thorpe railway collision 1874](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Site_of_thorpe_railway_collision_1874.jpg)
Prompted by the accident, engineer Edward Tyer developed the
tablet system in which a token is given to the train driver; this must be slotted into an electric interlocking device at the other end of the single-track section before another train is allowed to pass.
Similar accidents
The
Canoe River train crash
The Canoe River train crash occurred on November 21, 1950, near Valemount in eastern British Columbia, Canada, when a westbound troop train and the eastbound Canadian National Railway (CNR) ''Continental Limited'' collided head-on. The collision ...
in Canada in 1950 also involved two trains, controlled by telegraphed orders, authorized to enter the same single-track section in opposite directions.
References
External links
Illustrated London News reportHistory feature on the disasterby
BBC Radio Norfolk
BBC Radio Norfolk is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Norfolk.
It broadcasts on FM, AM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at The Forum in Norwich.
According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience of 1 ...
Broadland Memories
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorpe Rail Accident
Railway accidents and incidents in Norfolk
History of Norfolk
Railway accidents in 1874
1874 in England
Train collisions in England
Norwich
Transport in Norwich
19th century in Norfolk
1874 disasters in the United Kingdom