Railway accident 1960-62 Cowley

[Curtiss313]

Would anyone know about an accident that possibly happened at or near the Morris Motors works at Cowley, Oxfordshire that happened sometime between 1960 and 1962. The accident involved locomotives Helperley Hall and 8F 48734 having a low speed head on collision. The only information that I have found was a brief mention in the editorial of a magazine called the "British Railway Journal" that was printed in 1990 and some negatives I have of the crash.

 

[Taunton]

The wrecked car bodies that have apparently fallen from wagons in the collision are for Morris Minor commercial vans, which I think at the time were built by the Pressed Steel company (part owned by Morris) in Swindon, and then taken to Cowley in Oxford, a train presumably hauled by the Hall, for assembly.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Might the incident have been the one at Didcot, on or around 14th August 1964, or was that separate one involving the same Stanier class 8F locomotive 48734?

 

[Gloster]

I don’t think that this is the 1964 Didcot accident as photos of that accident show much more severe damage to 48734.

 

[John Webb]

Adrian Vaughan's book "Signalman's Nightmare' mentions an accident, at Horspath Bank 'around 1957' on the Oxford-Thame-Princes Risborough line, where a train hauled by a Hall class loco was held on the downhill side of a passing loop at Morris Cowley station to await another train entering the loop from the uphill (Wheatley) end. The latter train, hauled by an ex-LMS 2-8-0, failed to stop in the loop due to brake problems and crashed into the waiting train which of course was standing with its brakes hard on.
I've looked in the Accident Reports section of the RailwayArchive site and can't find anything there about this mishap, but this accident seems to agree with your photographs of the locos involved.

 

[Taunton]

The latter train, hauled by an ex-LMS 2-8-0, failed to stop

Sorry to nit-pick, but it was an ex-LNER loco, class O6, built at Darlington at the end of WW2 (to LMS drawings, of course), and absorbed into the end of the main 8F series at nationalisation.

 

[John Webb]

Sorry to nit-pick, but it was an ex-LNER loco, class O6, built at Darlington at the end of WW2 (to LMS drawings, of course), and absorbed into the end of the main 8F series at nationalisation.

Noted - Adrian Vaughan just says "an ex-LMS 2-8-0" with no further detail. The accident happened before he started working on the railway.

 

[Loppylugs]

I have the repair records of many GWR locos. The record for 6979 reads as follows:

Stopped by Oxford (81F) depot on 13 January 1961 after a collision at Cowley.
Taken to Swindon on February 18 and entered the works on March 22 for a Heavy Casual repair.
Repair was completed on June 14. After a running in test it returned to the works 2 days later for an unclassified repair.
It returned to it's home depot, Banbury (84C) on 30 June 1961.

Hope this is of interest.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Based on the above info, it seems that the accident occurred in the early hours of Thursday 12th January 1961.

That day's 'Coventry Evening Telegraph' reported...

"...The two trains were a Paddington to Leamington parcels train and a freight train from Washwood Heath. Birmingham, to Morris Cowley. The locomotives were locked together and were badly damaged. A Western Region spokesman said that no-one was injured."

The following day's 'Birmingham Daily Post' added...

"...the drivers and firemen escaped unhurt from a head-on collision between a parcels train and a freight train on a single line, 600 yards from Morris Cowley station, Oxfordshire".

 

[Harvester]

Furthermore the RCTS visited Crewe Works on 19 February 1961, and 8F 48734 is listed (RO March 1961) as being under repair in the erecting shop.

 

[Gloster]

The trains were presumably the 12.40 a.m. Paddington, due off Wheatley at 2.13 a.m., and the 6.50 p.m. Washwood Heath, due at Morris Cowley at 1.55 a.m.

 

[Curtiss313]

Thank you all for your help. I finally have answers to my questions

 

[contrex]

It does look like the 8F got the best of the argument; that flimsy GWR thing is all bent up! My dad (LMS through and through) would have been pleased, provided nobody was hurt.

I once spoke to an ex-WR driver who told me about conducting an Eastern Region driver on a diesel-hauled freight. The ER man couldn't see the point of fixed distant signals. A bloke signing the route should know where he is, he said. He added 'If you ask me, GWR stood for Great Women's Railway!'.

 

[Loppylugs]

Sorry, no comparison. The Listless, Mundane & Slow cannot get close to God's Wonderful Railway. Don't forget, Swindon provided the LMS with their greatest CME in William Stanier and had the GWR aws system been installed on other railways the Harrow and Wealdstone disaster of 1952 may have been averted.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

A handful of supplementary snippets regarding the Thursday 12th January 1961 incident.

According to the following day's 'Birmingham Daily Post'...

"The freight train was from Paddington and the goods train was bringing Morris Minor van bodies from Washwood Heath Birmingham to the station . The freight train was about to enter the station in reverse when the London train ran into (it)."

And the 'Coventry Evening Telegraph' reported on the day of the incident that both the driver and the fireman of the goods train had had to "leap to safety" seconds before the (low speed) collision, but that no-one had been injured.

And the same day's 'Nottingham Evening News' reported that three freight wagons were derailed and two more freight wagons and a parcels wagon were also damaged.

 

[Gloster]

After trying to match the first photo and the details up with the signalling diagram (low resolution) and maps, it seems that the most likely cause was the parcels passing the Home Signal at Danger. Possible, but less likely, alternatives are that the parcels left Wheatley without the token, which could be a dismissal matter; an illegal move, such as a shunt into an occupied section by the signalman; or an overrunning shunt by the goods. These are just tentative deductions: there is not enough information to be sure. There is an OPC book on the line ‘Princes Risborough-Thame-Oxford Railway’ which have might have more.

 

[John Webb]

After trying to match the first photo and the details up with the signalling diagram (low resolution) and maps, it seems that the most likely cause was the parcels passing the Home Signal at Danger. Possible, but less likely, alternatives are that the parcels left Wheatley without the token, which could be a dismissal matter; an illegal move, such as a shunt into an occupied section by the signalman; or an overrunning shunt by the goods. These are just tentative deductions: there is not enough information to be sure. There is an OPC book on the line ‘Princes Risborough-Thame-Oxford Railway’ which have might have more.

Horspath Bank on the East side of Morris Cowley station was steep (I don't know the gradient) and perhaps yet again there was a brake problem?

 

[4069]

There is an OPC book on the line ‘Princes Risborough-Thame-Oxford Railway’ which have might have more.

It doesn't.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

If the newspaper extracts that I've quoted upthread in posts #9 and #15 are accurate, in particular that the freight train from Paddington was running in reverse, which suggests that the goods train from Birmingham was running loco first, might the two trains have both been simultaneously moving when the goods train caught up and impacted "head on" with the freight train loco? Or had the goods train come to a halt, on the single track line, for some reason?

 

[Gloster]

I haven’t been able to find a map that shows where the motor factory sidings were, but the on the low resolution signalling diagram there is a ground frame out at the Kennington Junction end. I am presuming that the goods train had run into the station on the running line (there was only one) and was about to propel back out into the siding. The parcels then passed the Down Home at danger and hit the 8F. This is only my deduction of what seems most likely. That might explain the Coventry Evening Telegraph’s comments, as the goods crew would have had very little warning of the approaching parcels, but the parcels crew might well have realised that they were running away.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I haven’t been able to find a map that shows where the motor factory sidings were, but the on the low resolution signalling diagram there is a ground frame out at the Kennington Junction end.

Does this 1960 OS map help any? Morris Cowley station and surrounding works area (in black) in centre of map.

View map: Ordnance Survey, SP50 - C (includes: Forest Hill with Shotover; Garsington; Horspath; Kennington; Littlemore; Marston... - OS 1:25,000 Outline Series of Great Britain, 1945-1965

maps.nls.uk

 

[Gloster]

I was wondering if the goods was stopped on the main line and was intending to reverse into the siding on the north side of the line just west of the station. This presumes that this is the rail entrance to the motor works.

 

[Snapper37]

I’ve got a report from this somewhere, but in the middle of a move at the moment, but from memory this was a signalman error, perhaps allowing one train to shunt forward into the Wheatley section with the other was in section?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Dec 2022 ==

It’s talked about in Vaughan’s book “Heart of the Great Western” 12Th Jan 61. The 8f hauled freight was allowed to stand on the single line to the East of Morris Cowley, even though the parcels was in section.

 

[Gloster]

It would certainly be possible that the signalman permitted the goods to shunt into the Cowley-Wheatley section so that it could back into the sidings: there were loop sidings on both sides of the single line with access from each end (in both cases the entrance points faced trains arriving at Cowley). I judged this to be less likely as allowing a train to shunt into a single line section, particularly one with a falling gradient, occupied by an approaching train is a mistake so basic that one would not expect a signalman ever to make it.

 

[John Webb]

I’ve got a report from this somewhere, but in the middle of a move at the moment, but from memory this was a signal man error, perhaps allowing one train to shunt forward into the Wheatley section with the other was in section?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Dec 2022 ==

It’s talked about in Vaughan’s book “Heart of the Great Western” 12Th Jan 61. The 8f hauled freight was allowed to stand on the single line to the East of Morris Cowley, even though the parcels was in section.

I have checked my copy of "The Heart of the Great Western" and can confirm that the signalman was at fault - he was inexperienced and had allowed the train to move forward into the section towards the Wheatly direction after giving the parcels train permission to approach from that direction. The signalman subsequently resigned.

 

[1018509]

Might the incident have been the one at Didcot, on or around 14th August 1964, or was that separate one involving the same Stanier class 8F locomotive 48734?

Wow! That brings back memories. ! was on a train that passed through the site Didcot train crash within hours of it happening. (Would that happen now?) All I can remember (I was a child) is seeing upturned steam locomotives and carriages on their sides in fields on the left as we were travelling towards London.

 

[Harvester]

Wow! That brings back memories. ! was on a train that passed through the site Didcot train crash within hours of it happening. (Would that happen now?) All I can remember (I was a child) is seeing upturned steam locomotives and carriages on their sides in fields on the left as we were travelling towards London.

The 8F 48734 was not so lucky in that collision at Didcot (14/8/1964). It was written off and scrapped soon afterwards.