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Two interesting sites here, re the General Strike and a particular railway connection - the Cramlington Flying Scotsman derailment: https://www.cramlingtontrainwreckers.co.uk/ https://sslh.org.uk/2025/12/19/cramlington-a-place-in-labour-history/

Thank you all so much for this really helpful conversation and detail - it's greatly appreciated. I've been back to the report and it just says 'Engine No. 5000' - so guessing it is a case of the general class number being used for an engine from that class, rather than the specific loco. Thanks...

A question for those with a bit of LMS loco knowledge out there - thanks in advance! We've a staff accident report in the Railway Work, Life & Death project files that mentions LMS engine no. 5000. The accident took place on 16 Feb 1935, at Cheetham Hill Junction, Manchester. Could this be the...

Absolutely - like this, from c.1914. 1688651216 Thank you - didn't know about this. As you say, with codes to account for it, it sounds as though there was some 'demand'/ need being served. Hadn't focused on ambulance trains (e.g. WW1) as they were serving a very specific and time-limited...

Thank you, that's brilliant! Much appreciated.

Thank you! 1688548164 Re your comment on Quintinshill and the special train, that's timely today, as with the 75th anniversary of the NHS we've been thinking about what happened to railway workers in the event of an accident which required removal to hospital. Sure we've seen cases of workers...

On the 75th anniversary of the NHS, the Railway Work, Life & Death project has put together a blog post, looking at some of the ways the railways dealt with healthcare (particularly in relation to accidents) before the NHS. Keen to share it here - it's a starting point and quite surface-level...

Good point. Always liked Riccarton Junction! 1687952036 Thank you - that's a good idea.

Hi All, Came across a reference on Wikipedia to the Midland Railway keeping an 'ambulance wagon' at Toton to provide treatment for injured shunters, and wondered if anyone had any more info on this? Interested in Toton or any other UK location (outside the works like Derby or Crewe, which had...

Thanks! Really glad to hear it - and yes, absolutely about that wider context. We're really hoping it'll be useful to people to get a sense of the 'bigger picture.' Thanks for letting us know!

The Railway Work, Life & Death project has just released a major new update to its free database of accidents to British and Irish railway staff before 1939. We've added around 25,000 more records, bringing our database to nearly 50,000 in total. The new records come from the ASRS/ NUR union...

Again, thanks to you all for the pointers so far - greatly appreciated. Will be having a look through the Railway Work, Life & Death project records to follow up on these. Just ran across an interesting (pre-grouping) example of the sort of thing I was thinking of - an accident to a worker from...

Thanks all, this is really helpful - much appreciated. Just had a related thought - differences in terminology between pre-grouping companies and their grouped successors; might there have been problems there, from using different terms for the same thing/ action, but not understanding? Thanks...

Thinking about the Grouping bringing together companies with very different identities and cultures, there's been some interesting discussion about how the mergers were carried out e.g. around branding, liveries and so on. But what about differing operating practices? So, how - in practice - did...

Interesting and thought-provoking thread, thanks all. I know that ASLEF have put together a list of footplate crew who died on duty as a result of accident: https://aslef.org.uk/footplate-fatalities - though my recollection is that it's missing names, it's a good starting point. Fully agree...

There's a bit on this issue of working the tunnel and runaways in the latest blog post on our project site: https://www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/listed-accidents/

Ok, I see what you mean on the formatting now. In that case volunteers will have made a choice about how they can best summarise what was in the original report. Sometimes the technical language makes most sense as it was in the original. This will only affect the few columns that were free-text...

Excellent, please let us know if you find him! 1662109438 Thanks for your interest and for having checked what we've been doing. Unfortunately we've not got permission from the copyright owners to make the original reports available - if we could, we would, as we fully agree that is the best...

Some of you will be interested in the new details about railway work, railway employees, & their accidents, from the 'Railway Work, Life & Death' project (www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk). We've just updated our free database with an additional 17,000 accidents to British & Irish railway staff...

Hopefully of interest to this forum - the 'Railway Work, Life & Death' project. We're a volunteer-driven project, looking at accidents to British & Irish railway employees between c.1890 and 1939. We're making freely available details of staff accidents that were investigated by the state...