'Miracle' of Shropshire train disaster where nobody died
Train carriages splintered to matchwood, mangled and twisted debris all over the tracks . . . this was the great Ludlow train disaster of 1956 in which a parcels train ploughed into the back of a stationary express with 150 passengers on board.
Just look at the pictures and you can imagine the horror and shock of that event which left a scene of devastation.
So why have you never heard of it? It is because there was a miracle – the word was used freely at the time – that day, Thursday, September 6, 1956.
Total fatalities – nil. Total injured – one, and that person only suffered from shock.
The accident happened in the dead of night and while it was at Ludlow, the origins were further up the line at Onibury. An articulated lorry driven by James Major Reynolds, of Liverpool, coming from the Shrewsbury direction, crashed into the level crossing gates at Onibury at 2am. The lorry mounted the platform, where it came to rest, completely blocking the Hereford to Shrewsbury "up" line on which both of the ill-fated trains were travelling.
With this main "up" line blocked, the overnight passenger express from Penzance to Manchester was ground to a halt and was held 200 yards north of Ludlow station.
At about 3.15am people in houses close to the line were awakened by a terrific crashing and splintering noise. The parcels train, also from Penzance and heading for Crewe, had ploughed into the back of the stationary train.
There was an enormous catalogue of good luck. Just before the crash the guard of the passenger train went to Ludlow signal box to find out what the delay was. This saved his life, as the parcels train "shot past like a rocket" and crashed into the rear of the train where he had been shortly beforehand.
The three coaches which bore the brunt of the impact were empty, except for a few parcels and mail bags. Similarly, the fourth from the end, which was a passenger carriage, had nobody in it.
The three parcels coaches were splintered and pushed forward on top of each other in concertina fashion. The loco of the parcels train ploughed beyond them and into and under the empty passenger coach – that is, the fourth coach from the rear – which split open and came to rest on top of the wreckage with the parcels train engine embedded as far back as the driver's cab. Amazingly, all 150 passengers stepped from the train, shocked but otherwise unscathed.
The luck extended beyond miracle escapes for those on the trains. An empty carriage reared crazily into the air before crashing down on its side. If it had toppled the other way, it would have demolished a cottage in which a man, his wife and small son were asleep.
The "up" and "down" lines were, unsurprisingly, completely blocked and the permanent way was littered with the contents of hundreds of parcels. The line was blocked for over 24 hours, with breakdown gangs coming from as far away as Cardiff.
