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Report on the Collision which occurred on 19th February 1957 near Leicester Station in the London Midland Region British Railways

Document Summary

The official report into a collision in bad weather on the Great Central Railway in 1957.

This document was published on 6th June 1957 by Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

It was written by Col W. P. Reed.

This item is linked to the Accident at Leicester on 19th February 1957

The original document format was PDF File, and comprised 7 pages.The original document can be found here.

This document was kindly sourced from Great Central Today and is in our Accident reports collection. It was added to the Archive on 9th July 2005.

Copyright Information

This document is Crown Copyright, and is subject to the terms governing the reproduction of crown copyright material. Depending on the status and age of the original document, you may need an OPSI click-use license if you wish to reproduce this material, and other restrictions may apply. Please see this explanation for further details.

"Falling snow had broken the block telegraph and telephone wires a few hours earlier, and trains were being worked under the time interval system. It was still snowing heavily and visibility was bad when the 6.20 a.m. passenger train from Nottingham Victoria to Marylebone passed the Up Outer Home signal for Leicester Passenger North signal box in the clear position at about 30 m.p.h. and ran into the rear of a slowly moving freight train a short distance ahead. The signal had not been restored to danger after the passage of the freight train as the signalman could not see through the falling snow that the train had passed it. The driver of the passenger train must have assumed that the clear signal was meant for him, although the rules expressly warn against such an assumption when proceeding at caution with a block failure."

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