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Accident Returns: Extract for the Accident at Kings Cross on 1st November 1860

Document Summary

The report on the explosion of the boiler of a contractor's engine (formerly the Eastern Counties Railway's "Albion") during the building of the Metropolitan Railway.

This document was published on 19th November 1860 by Board of Trade.

It was written by Capt. H. W. Tyler.

This item is linked to the Accident at Kings Cross on 1st November 1860

The original document format was Bound Volume, and comprised 3 pages.

This document was kindly sourced from Office of Rail Regulation and is in our Accident reports collection. It was added to the Archive on 9th July 2012 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.

"As the engine had been standing still for so long a time, the water bad no doubt become low in the boiler; but the driver is said to have been an experienced man, and it appears that he was noticing its condition, and had been remarking upon it; and it is to be concluded that he had not allowed it to become dangerously so, rather than that he knowingly and deliberately ran the risk of causing an explosion, of which he would be in all probability the victim.

The pressure of the steam may have been somewhat above what is given-66lbs. to the square inch, as the ordinary working pressure of the engine, but it cannot apparently have been very materially so; and it cannot certainly have been anything but what the boiler, if properly constructed, ought to have been capable of withstanding.

Looking to all the circumstances of the case, as far as I have been made acquainted with them, I can come to no other conclusion than that the boiler gave way in consequence of the weakness of its construction, at a pressure not very much exceeding that at which it was ordinarily employed, and at a pressure under which it ought to have been perfectly safe."

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