Had not been out for a run for over three weeks until a few days ago. I'd been laid low by some sort of virus and have been whinging on about it for ages. Dizziness, aches and pains, exhaustion, gah, what a wuss. However as I started to feel incrementally better the urge to go for a run increased. If you run regularly you'll be aware of the effect it has on you, it is absolutely like a drug and the side effects are such that you feel mentally stronger, invigorated, and all round like some sort of super-being. So the desire to get out again is strong.
So, with the wind in my hair (hair, singular) and the sun at my back, I ran out. And while out plodding on one of my usual running routes, via Crookes Cemetery, I spotted two war graves right next to each other but standing alone from the rest of the graves. There was that odd feeling you get when you suddenly spot something that you've never noticed before, something that has always been there in plain sight but somehow escaped ever impinging on our consciousness over how ever many years. Like leaving the front door of your house one day, high up in the landlocked hills, gong to the corner shop and noticing for the first time a concrete plinth supporting a full sized copy of the Cunard liner the Queen Mary.
I came back later and took the photograph of the graves and then went to see if I could discover what had happened to these people that were both killed on the same day in 1942.
I turns out that they were two of fourteen victims of a local rail disaster, all of them servicemen. The accident happened at Beighton Junction toward the outskirts of Sheffield. As it was bad news during wartime it didn't feature in the national press and would only have made cursory mention in the local press. However, it appears that at least three local newspapers across the country printed quite detailed accounts about what had happened. A lot of history has been pieced together since, Chris Hobbs has quite a lot of information and there is also a piece from the BBC although now on an archived page. There is also a detailed report produced for Sir Cyril Hurcomb who at the time was The Director General of the Ministry of War Transport which you can find a link to here at the Railways Archive.
The report, written by J.L.M.Moore, describes how steel plate projecting from the side of a plate-wagon on an adjacent line had come into contact with a number of carriages of a passing troop train. It details the events leading up to the accident, the working practices in place, and also gives information on the tests carried out and the steps used in reconstruction of how the accident happened.
The responsibility for the accident was placed with one of the workers on the sidings, however Moore is at pains to point out the difficulty of the task in hand and other circumstances and conditions at the time which also played a part. He states that although the responsibility lies with the worker, a Mr Heliwell, "the blame, if any, must not be judged by the results." He is clearly saying that the man made a mistake but it was a mistake that of itself would not naturally lead to such a catastrophic sequence of events given the other factors in play. Further to that he makes recommendations about the working practices with regard to steel plate and that those methods would not secure these types of loads, and suggested the "immediate discontinuance" of this method of working - these changes were advised to be made across the entire LNER network and the other railway companies too. It was also noted that if the goods yard had had the same clearance that was required for new works then the accident would not have happened.
It appears to me then that this accident was caused by systemic failure, and although the responsibility was placed at the feet of one worker it actually more properly belongs to each of the steps where failure occurred. Working practices that eventually proved to be dangerous, out of date configuration of the sidings, employee working on an unexpected job beyond shift end, icy conditions and other minor elements combined. It also appears that this is understood to be the case, and although there was an element of the finger of blame being pointed at Helliwell it was clearly acknowledged in the convoluted and archaic language of the time that this unfortunate incident was not solely his fault.
The comments made in the report suggest that Helliwell wasn't the sharpest of individuals as he was "not over alert either in mind of in body" and that he was over the age of 60 and perhaps a younger, more alert man, would have handled the situation better. There is no indication of what happened to Helliwell next.
For official/internal use only:
5544
0-95544
No comments:
Post a Comment