In 1874, a momentary lapse - in protocol and in communication - at a railway station in Norwich led to the head on collision between two trains on a single trail rail line at Thorpe St Andrew, in Norfolk, England. Almost two dozen people died; scores more were injured.

The book begins by introducing us to some of the people aboard the train. for some, we get two or three paragraphs. For some, we get two or three pages (especially if they are part of the aristocracy or are involved in the actual running of the train). I do usually enjoy this, but after awhile I found myself skimming them - it became a little tedious, and very difficult to remember all of them, especially given the sheer number of Johns and Roberts and Marys and Anns, and all the other quite common names primarily given in that place at that time.

The most interesting art of the book is the breakdown of the accident and just how a series of errors, boiled down to one single lapse, can have disastrous results. In this case, the trains were running late. At the time, the station agent had to give he telegraph clerk a written slip - signed - so the clerk could transmit the authorization to proceed down the line. In Norwich, the clerk had a group of friends in the office, against protocol, and the station agent, aggravated by this and by the lateness of the train, failed to sign off on the authorization. The telegraph clerk transmitted it anyway, which set the trains on the collision course toward one another. Although the engineers on both trains saw each others' trains coming and attempted to brake, it was too late for the crash to be avoided.

After the crash, people from towns on both sides of the crash flocked to the area to pull people from the wreckage. The engineers and firemen (coal stokers) in both trains were killed instantly, as were a number of people in first class at the front of the trains. Other people suffered rather gruesome injuries, ranging from severed limbs to burns from the boilers spewing uncontrolled steam.

For the time, the response was remarkable, in my opinion. Constables went door to door in each town looking for doctors and nurses to help the wounded, and a response train, loaded with supplies and more medical professionals, ferried wounded from the crash site to yet another town, moving back and forth through the evening.

We get the details for many of the people we met a the opening of the book, dead or alive/wounded, but again, without flipping back to the beginning, I couldn't place about half of them. Quite a number of the doctors get their chance to shine here as well. working doggedly to save who they could.

The inevitable lawsuits begin, and most of the blame is found to lie with the station agent (and the railway, of course).

The book ends with a sort of "where are they now" look at what happened post-Thorpe to many of the wounded and the doctors who treated them.

If you can get past the first part, it's a four star read. The beginning, though, just gets a two. I'm spitting the difference and giving it three stars.

Thanks to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for the reading copy.

This book provides a very detailed account of the the lives of the people who were killed, injured or otherwise directly affected by the 'Great Thorpe Railway Disaster' of 1874. Living in Colchester not too far from the location and having worked on railway projects on and off for the last 20+ years this book was of particular interest for me.
There are one or two paragraphs for each of these people, some before and after the event as they go about their normal lives unaware of the danger they are travelling towards and then, in some cases their struggles after as railway lawyers battle to keep the costs of claims down. This is both the most interesting and the most tedious parts of the book as reading two or three paragraphs about each person for page after page can become a bit repetitive whilst providing information that is very interesting.
When I finished the book I asked myself 'have I learned anything new about the incident and the people involved and my answer is yes and so in the end this book is successful and recommended for those living in the area, those with an interest in trains and in English history.

When I picked up Phyllida Scrivens’ Great Thorpe Railway Disaster 1874, I expected a fairly dry account of why the disaster happened: which rule wasn’t followed by railway staff; what the Board of Trade enquiry found; etc.. I am absolutely DELIGHTED to say the book is much much better than that.

The accident on Thursday, 10th September 1874 resulted in the deaths of 25 people. Trains left Norwich and Great Yarmouth that evening and met head-on at Thorpe St Andrew, two miles east of Norwich.

We get a chapter on the history of the line and then a chapter giving a series of pen portraits of various people in Norwich, Yarmouth and Great Thorpe and what they might have done and thought on the day of the accident. Chapter 3 gives us more pen portraits as people board the trains that evening. We also get the dialogue between the telegraph operator and his inspector at Norwich that was documented at the subsequent enquiry. The 9pm express from London was late and the mail train was waiting at Brundall Station a few miles away, waiting for the line. Inspector Cooper told John Robson to send a message to Brundall Station, instructing them to despatch the mail train along the single line to Norwich. Robson did so, with the message logged at 9:24pm. The express arrived shortly after the message was sent and Cooper didn’t detain it, allowing it to set off down the single line towards Brundall.

Chapter 4 – Impact – is excellent. It describes the moment that the two trains met and how the people we met in earlier chapters fared. Some were killed; some were injured; some were able to walk away. This is vivid stuff.

Chapter 5 – The Days Following – covers the inquests that took place over the next day and Saturday, mostly using the words of the witnesses and the relatives and friends who identified the bodies. Chapter 6 takes us to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, where messages were sent to off-duty, retired and trainee staff, urging them to come in and help. We get a chapter on the doctors and surgeons who treated the patients. Other chapters cover the inquiry; the trials of the unfortunate Cooper and Robson; the compensation cases where the survivors (or, more often, the dependents of the deceased) pleaded for money from the Great Eastern Railway. Scrivens also tells us about the heroes who attended the crash site, trying to rescue people or helping them subsequently. We also hear about some survivors, one of whom lived until 1925.

The chronological order of the chapters and the cycling through the locations - the two stations and Thorpe – brings increasing tension to the narrative. The pen portraits make us realise that behind the dry history of a disaster were real people with devastated families: mothers with fatherless babies; parents that lost children; businesses that lost their owners and thus workers without a job and without any income.

This is a really good book. I recommend it to everyone, even if you’re not at all interested in railways.

#TheGreatThorpeRailwayDisaster1874 #NetGalley

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley # netgalley

Wow I had absolutely no idea this even happened! Such a great read