On This Day: Sutton Coldfield rail disaster kills 17 as train derails at station

JAN 23, 1955: Seventeen people were killed and dozens injured in one of Britain’s worst rail crashes on this day in 1955 when an express train derailed at Sutton Coldfield station.

The steam train, which was carrying about 300 passengers, was travelling at almost twice the 30mph speed limit when it passed a sharp curve.

Six of the ten coaches overturned as the York to Bristol express approached the station in the affluent Birmingham suburb.

The driver and the fireman died when the engine ploughed into a platform and caused the carriages to snake into the air, with one dragged along the station roof.

Luckily, despite the accident happening at 4.15pm, no bystanders were killed while they waited for their trains to arrive.

A British Pathé newsreel showed rescuers – including members of the RAF - working through the night to search the twisted wreckage for survivors.

It also filmed the coal tender being lifted by a crane and the steam engine completely overturned on the track.

A second express train was only prevented from ploughing into the wreckage – as happened three years earlier – when two bystanders flagged it down to alert its driver.

One passenger, Mr W Forrest of South Shields, who was travelling in the fifth coach on his way to Coventry, told the BBC: “The train had been swaying from side to side.

“Suddenly there was a terrific rending noise and we were all thrown in a heap.

“Some of us were thrown up and struck the roof.”

A total of 43 people were injured in the crash, which was just one of many during the 1950s.

The worst peace-time rail disaster took place at Harrow and Wealdstone Station in 1952 when three trains crashed in heavy fog and left 112 dead and 340 injured.

Then in 1953, 10 people were killed and 60 injured at Collyhursy, Manchester when a electric train collided with a steam locomotive and killed 10 people.

Later in December 1955 there were two more rail crashes, with 13 killed at Barnes, south-west London on December 2 and one killed at Luton on December 22.

The crashes prompted the government, which then owned British Rail, to announce a multi-million pound modernisation plan for the railways.

The plans included a £210million scheme to improve track and signalling to enable higher speeds.

Ministers also announced a £345million programme to electrify a large proportion of railway and introduce electric and diesel locomotives.

The exact cause of the Sutton Coldfield crash was never established, although excessive speed was felt to be a major factor.

Investigators were never able to find out why the driver, who knew the track well, was travelling at 55-60mph.

Britain’s worst rail disaster occurred in 1915 during the First World War when 226 people died when a passenger service hit a troop train at Quintinshill in Scotland.