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Accident Returns: Extract for the Accident at West Bromwich on 23rd December 1854

Document Summary

The report on the failure of a locomotive tyre, which became detached at speed and struck and fatally injured a bystander.

This document was published on 12th January 1855 by Board of Trade.

It was written by Col. W. Yolland.

This item is linked to the Accident at West Bromwich on 23rd December 1854

The original document format was Bound Volume, and comprised 1 pages.

This document was kindly sourced from Bill King and is in our Accident reports collection. It was added to the Archive on 7th October 2011 by Stuart Johnson.

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.

"It appears that on the 23d December, as a special express train, which left Birmingham at 8.5 P.M. for Wolverhampton, was proceeding, at the rate of about 30 or 35 miles an hour, down an incline of 1 in 98 opposite to the Swan Village station, the tire of the six-feet driving wheel of a narrow-gauge engine broke, stripped the heads off eight rivets, by which it was secured to the circumference of the wheel, and was projected forwards, striking and tearing up a portion of the wooden platform; then it knocked down the near side of some wooden palings
placed at the side of the roadway of a level crossing close to the end of the platform; next struck the head of a young girl of about thirteen years of age, who, with several other persons, was waiting to pass over the railway, and then knocked down the palings at the further side of the railway, and lodged on a bank thirty or forty yards beyond it. The girl was so dreadfully injured that she only lived three-quarters of an hour. A coroner's inquest has returned a verdict of "Accidental death." A man who was standing by her side was knocked down and had his elbow slightly hurt; but I imagine he was not touched by the tire, but only by the wooden paling as it fell to the ground."

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