Ais Gill 2nd September 1913

[TheSignalEngineer]

Spare a thought tonight for those souls who perished in the collision and fire at 3am on 2nd September 1913 just north of Ais Gill.

 

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BoT_AisGill1913.pdf

 

This accident had far reaching consequences in the construction of rolling stock and railway operation.

[petethemole]

I noticed this earlier:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-23881307

 

Pete

[The Stationmaster]

It is salutary to learn what happened regarding changes to the Rules following this collision especially Rules 40 and 217.  The revised wording of the former was finally agreed at RCH level in the spring of 1915 but by July of that year it had been decided (presumably at RCH level) to delay implementation 'until the end of the war'.  Rule 217 fared even worse nothwithstanding a new suggested wording being submitted by the GWR in early 1914 as by July 1915 it was noted in a GWR minute as 'revised version still not ready'  (meaning iy had still not been put together at RCH level.

 

I have only tracked these two up to early 1916 but there appears to be no sign of either Rule being altered by then.  In fact the GWR's far greater concern - judging by the minute book I have - was to proceed with track circuiting installations following the Report of the Hawes Junction collision some years earlier although it had already in any case been working on revision of Rule 40 prior to the Ais Gill collision.

 

I would reiterate one of my past general comments on these early Reports and suggest that they should be required reading for today's RAIB Inspectors - who could clearly learn a lot from them.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Not only for the quality of the content, but that report was completed only five weeks after the accident.

 

When I was responsible for recruiting and training at a new design office all of my trainees were lectured in the causes and resultant changes for a number of significant accidents as part of their "indoctrination".

[The Stationmaster]

Not only for the quality of the content, but that report was completed only five weeks after the accident.

 

When I was responsible for recruiting and training at a new design office all of my trainees were lectured in the causes and resultant changes for a number of significant accidents as part of their "indoctrination".

Yes, I always used to refer to some of them when training Signalmen (or indeed when doing 'operating' training/explanation sessions with trainee signal engineers).

 

Oh and I referred to one past incident in very strong terms on the occasion I caught two Signalment changing over at an unofficial time with one entering details into the Train Register from a scrap of paper on which the other had noted down  times.  And rather spookily it was at a 'box where trains (freight) were regularly shunted 'across the road' for regulating purposes - albeit lines with near continuous track circuits.