good morning everybody and welcome to a new video not just a new video a new era
of videos indeed a new era of filming like you guys we are stuck indoors so
we're doing the right thing and staying at home and we're making a series of
videos based around transportation history and such quirky stories that
hopefully capture your imagination and interest basically we're copying
Rebecca's channel but for transport
anyway so today's video is a incident involving Charles Dickens and a train
incident back in the 1860s so join us for a new era of filming today's story takes
us to Kent and in particular a stretch of line between headcorn and staple
erst this bridge was a site of accident involving Charles Dickens a question
that still remains though is why was Dickens not mentioned in the immediate
newspaper reports and why did he refuse to go to the inquest all this and more
in today's transport history shorts
each day a boat train or a tidal train as it was more commonly known
would carry passengers from Folkstone down in Kent back up to London the
passengers would have taken a daily cross-channel ferry is probably
important to note that it's referred to as a tidal train for a reason it was one
of very few trains which didn't really run to specific timetable and altered
from day to day the train itself was quite long it consisted of the loco and
guards van a second-class carriage for almost seven first-class carriages to
further second-class carriages and then free brake vans so the ability to slow
this train down was in the form of the engine loco itself and then free guards
so three guards were positioned on various points on the train the first
guard was in the guards van immediately behind the loco and then to further
guards controlled two of the three rear brake vans communication was said to be
perfect between all four and at any one point they could break five of the
fourteen cars of the train so the first brake van controlled the second-class
coach and a first-class coach immediately thereafter and obviously the
brake vans in the rear were independent and they could break themselves and
obviously the loco itself so communication was done between these by
a whistling system this was tried and tested.
tested and it was an accepted communication system for southeastern
railway so as the train travels west across Kent on its way back to London we
note that we have a famous witness on board but why exactly is Dickens on the
train to answer that we need to go back to 1857 he was writing a play and hard
an actress upon recommendation could Ellen Ternan she would have been just 18
at the time he cast her in his play the frozen deep in Manchester of August that
year Dickens in turn and soon fell in love
and at the time Dickens did be unthinkable and
divorced his then-wife Katherine Hoggard truly unheard of at the time and so back
to 1865 Dickens along with Ellen and her mother are returning from a break in
Paris about to be involved in an event that according to Dickens son would
never see in the same man again around eight weeks prior to the accident the
stretch of line between head corn and staplers which is extremely straight
there was a gang of men working on the line
they've been replacing the longer chewed '''l sleepers that carried the rails now
they consisted of four carpenters one laborer and free plate layers they'd
become extremely efficient over these eight weeks and quickly replacing these
timbers the foreman of this gang John benge had a clear and crucial role it's
been that means he must be intellectual for the job he had worked for the
company for ten years and knew this area very well as he'd worked on it
specifically for two years and ten months in order to expedite the process
of work he was responsible for selecting intervals between time tables so the
workers could go about their repairs according to South Eastern Railway
process this was perfectly acceptable and in negated the need to make a
double-track effectively into a single line the
foreman would simply check the daily timetable and work around it
interestingly this particular group the leading carpenter had also been provided
with a timetable however it was of little use to him as it had been cut in
two by the wills of a train so the gang employed a signalman he was also known
as a flagman for obvious reasons he would walk a set distance away from
where the works were and he would stand holding his flag if necessary so it was
also given a number of fog detonators they recorded you imagine they place him
on the track train goes over detonator goes off alerts the driver there's
danger ahead so on the day and the weeks leading up to it John benjin his team
are completed 29 out of the 32 repairs are they were set to do so they had free
left to do on the 9th of June before breakfast had already completed
the first soon after breakfast they worked on the second and completed it -
with great success so they had one more left to do the team themselves were
really proud of the efficiency was which they worked in all of the eight weeks up
until this point they did not have to stop one passenger train that was a
great record they only train they had to stop was a
ballast trainer and they presumed that the distance the flagman
the flag man was standing was sufficient because the palace train was able to
stop sufficiently in time having examined the timetable in his breakfast
slot John bench had already planned the works on the line for the final boat
repair he found the gap in the timetable between the 254 on the down train and
the 4:15 p.m. on the up despite at least eight weeks of repairs
what John bench forgot to take into consideration was the varying times of
the total train on repair number thirty-two this would prove to be a
mistake with disastrous consequences despite southeastern railway regulations
stating that the flag man must stand at least 1,000 yards away from the works we
know that John wills that suggested he stood and what was known as the tenth
Telegraph we now know this to be 554 yards away from the works not a thousand
however he assumed everything was Foreman because in his experience he'd
stopped a ballast train and they knew that there was enough space but because
the works they've done over the last eight weeks was so efficient
there was no experience in stopping a passenger train not only this but he was
also carrying the detonators with him but he had assumed that they were only
to be used in fog in other words when the driver wouldn't be able to see the
flagman this was also a big mistake so we're back on the train and were
traveling 50 miles an hour through a head corn station heading towards staple
hearse on the straight track Lord of the gang no but is heading straight for them
and the 42-foot of missing track the fragment sees the train approaching and
holds up his flag does catch the eye of the driver the
driver merely puts a train in Reverse and sends out the communication whistle
to the other guards on the train they also apply their brakes
unfortunately it was too late two lengths of rail measuring 42 feet in
total had been removed and with a train traveling at their speed when the driver
thirst soft mad when John wills 554 yards was not enough distance to
slow the train before it reached the missing section of rail amid Lee above
the viaduct the engine made it across the viaduct carried possibly buyers
momentum the tender and the first and second class carriage also stayed
upright and aligned chose Dickens was situated in the next coach the
first-class accommodation was the first coach to suffer I was left hanging over
the edge of the river embankment the following six coaches were in various
states of damage but all with them within the mud and the riverbed it
slightly this is where the majority of serious injuries and deaths occurred the
entire Train consisted of 80 first-class passengers and 35 second-class of which
this disaster saw eight women and freemen die with 40 seriously injured it
was said that as only the rails had been removed not yet the longer to t'l beams
this acted almost as a rail for the Train and carried it across a 42 feet
section had that been removed we may be looking at different accident altogether
it was beaned they had the self eastern railways regulations but it did to the
accident wouldn't have happened and the train would have made it to his
destination so number one John wills had he had been stood a thousand yards then
they would deem that the train would have enough time to stop had he also
placed the five detonators then also the driver would have heard the death
ah--this and again stopped the train before the work area it was also deemed
that as this type of repair fell into a certain category no knowledge of the
repairs over the 10 weeks was made to the head engineer subsequently it wasn't
common knowledge and the drivers had no indication of any potential issue that
head on the line ahead of them John bench Foreman of the plate layers was
ultimately blamed nothing fell on the railway company at the time and that was
rarely the case the result of the coroner's inquest is a verdict of
manslaughter and the report red John bench was to serve six months hard labor
for his crime so what became of our famous witness well Charles Dickens was
an extremely lucky man as were his companions he was left in the first
first-class coach hanging over the edge of the riverbank when he made sure that
his companions were safe he climbed out and I will read you an extract of a
letter they sent his doctor in the preceding days thereafter looking down I
saw nothing below me but the line of rail some people in the other two
compartments close by were madly trying to plunge out of the window and had no
idea that there was an open swampy field 15 feet down below them and nothing else
two guards one with his face cut above running up and down on the down side of
the bridge which was not torn up quite wildly I called out to them look at me
don't stop an instant and look at me and tell me whether or not you don't know me
one of them answered we know you very well mr. Dickens then I said my good
fellow for God's sake give me your key and send one of those labourers here and
I will empty this carriage possibly because Dickens did not want to be known
as a hero but equally possibly because he didn't want to be known that he was
on the train at all there was little evidence in the papers and the reports
of the accident that he was on board at all he had no intention of turning up at
the inquest soon after even as a potential key witness he was however
later acknowledged the letter ended I don't want to be examined and the
inquest and I don't want to write about it I could do no good either way and I
could only seem to speak about myself which of course I would rather not do
and keeping very quiet here I have a I don't know what you call it
constitutional presence of mind and writing these scanty words
recollection or feel the shake and I'm obliged to stop ever faithfully Charles
Dickens