please empty your brain below
This location seems to get more than its fair share of fatal incidents. I was told that when they built the "fly-down" around 1975 that one or more workmen died in its construction. Later when they were extending the platform to take 12-carriage trains a bridge had to be demolished. This was done in such an unsafe manner that more deaths occurred. There is due to be major work done here (doubling the "fly-down") as part of the Thameslink Programme. Lets hope they manage that without further deaths.
dg writes: I considered writing "the tender behind", but somehow it didn't seem appropriate.
Lewisham wasn't the sole accident which led to the installation of AWS. A similar system was already used on the former Great Western Railway, and a trial of AWS was installed on the London, Tilbury & Southend line in the 1940s. The Harrow accident occurred 3 years earlier in very similar circumstances, had a higher death toll, and is the accident usually cited as sparking BR's interest in installing AWS nationally - a programme which wasn't completed until the 1990s.
Incidentally, South London has been described as one of the areas where AWS is least effective, because it's so busy that trains often have to pass signals at caution (yellow). AWS gives exactly the same indication for "caution" and "stop", so where trains are following closely together, and the second train will be passing lots of signals at caution, it gives the driver limited help.
Pedantically, I don't think I'll risk writing about the anniversary of the Purley rail crash.
Apart from that we had a railman die in recent years fighting a fire on a train (caused by arson) so we have a not-quite-straight plaque on one of the platforms dedicated to his memory.
Unfortunately, like St. Johns, Purley station and surrounding area seems to attract fatalities. Historically trespassers on the line from the local loony bin were a major cause. Slightly to the north at Purley Oaks there was a major accident in 1947. This, like St. Johns, had thick fog as an initial cause. 32 people died as a result of the signalman incorrectly believing his equipment was faulty and overriding the safety apparatus.
Recently an aggregates train from Purley yard departed because the driver mistook another signal for the one applying to him. It was serious enough for the Rail Accident Investigation Board to investigate and report on it.
http:/
ews.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/63.../uk/
6392041.stm
But is it acomprehensive list, or is there a better list?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
home...\\_lewisham.shtml
A very interesting post though; I've often looked at that plaque and wondered about the story behind it.
40 years later I moved to the Lewisham/New Cross area, and often went under the bridge.
I was 11, asleep, and he came into my room to tell me that there'd been a horrendous crash at Lewisham, where I went to school (Colfe's). At that age, it didn't really affect me, but like Tina, I recall watching the TV news.
What intrigues me now is the plaque: is it 'Corporate Social Responsibility' in the UK for a funeral parlour, amongst the others, to sponsor such things?
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