Accident Returns: Extract for the Accident at Bramhope Tunnel on 19th September 1854

"The circumstances connected with the accident are as follows: A pick-up train on the Leeds Northern, consisting of one engine and tender, four passenger carriages, one break van, five passenger carriages, one break van, and one passenger carriage, left Arthington station, 9¼ miles from Leeds, for Leeds at 9.30. a.m. on the 19th ultimo, preceded and assisted as usual by a pilot engine, (which had safely passed down the tunnel about half an hour before,) up the incline of 1 in 94, and it had got about three fourths of the length of the Bramhope Tunnel, travelling at the rate of about 20 miles an hour, when the pilot engine ran over a large mass of stone and rubbish which had fallen from an opening in the arch of the tunnel across both lines, a portion of the arch itself having given way. The tender also passed over some portion of this rubbish, but the engine was thrown off the rails and came suddenly to rest. The front wheels of the second engine mounted this rubbish and the tender of the pilot engine remained suspended by the hook in front of this engine. The collision appears to have been very violent, as the hinder cross beam below the foot plate, and the foot plate itself of the pilot engine were broken. The guards in front were knocked off, the hand railing considerably damaged, and the chimney knocked off and lay at its side."

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