NRM Featured on Bargain Hunt

[itznonbine]

Todays Episode of Bargain Hunt (21/05/18) featured the National Railway Museum talking about a driver who was awarded the George Cross back in the steam era saving lives and giving up his own after a fatal blowback!

 

[John Webb]

I missed this episode, but I'm fairly certain the accident mentioned was in 1957. It wasn't a 'blowback' in the more usual sense of a superheater tube giving way and forcing steam and flame into the cab, but the failure of the feed to the steam brake valve - rendering the loco brakes useless and also filling the cab with quantities of steam, preventing the crew from operating the controls. Full details can be found in the report at http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Chapel1957.pdf.

The accident and the bravery of the driver was the subject of a BBC Radio programme "The Ballad of John Axon" several years after the event.

 

[scott118]

https://www.steamrailway.co.uk/steamnews/2017/9/7/nrm-acquires-wallace-oakes-george-cross

The programme also spoke about Audrey Mossom.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...by-stalin-on-a-peace-trip-to-the-1795569.html

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...y-of-a-hero-train-driver.160174/#post-3315790

 

[Steamysandy]

I missed this episode, but I'm fairly certain the accident mentioned was in 1957. It wasn't a 'blowback' in the more usual sense of a superheater tube giving way and forcing steam and flame into the cab, but the failure of the feed to the steam brake valve - rendering the loco brakes useless and also filling the cab with quantities of steam, preventing the crew from operating the controls. Full details can be found in the report at http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Chapel1957.pdf.

The acxcident and the bravery of the driver was the subject of a BBC Radio programme "The Ballad of John Axon" several years after the event.

I missed this episode, but I'm fairly certain the accident mentioned was in 1957. It wasn't a 'blowback' in the more usual sense of a superheater tube giving way and forcing steam and flame into the cab, but the failure of the feed to the steam brake valve - rendering the loco brakes useless and also filling the cab with quantities of steam, preventing the crew from operating the controls. Full details can be found in the report at http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Chapel1957.pdf.

The accident and the bravery of the driver was the subject of a BBC Radio programme "The Ballad of John Axon" several years after the event.

It wasn't that accident but a later accident involving driver Wallace Oakes who died following an incident on the footplate of a Britannia on a West Coast Express