Over the latter years of the 19th and early years of the 20th centuries Penistone gained a name as an accident black-spot on Britains railway network, indeed it could be said to hold the title of the worst accident black-spot in the country. The main line through the town was the Woodhead route of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway bewteen Sheffield Victoria and Manchester, London Road. The line was heavily graded with a summit some 400 yards inside the eastern portal of the Woodhead tunnel.
The first Penistone rail crash which occurred on July 16th 1884 did not occur in the town but a few miles west near Bullhouse Colliery. The accident is often referred to as being at "Bullhouse Bridge". An express passenger train from Manchester, London Road to London, Kings Cross, with through carriages for Grimsby Docks in connection with the evening steamer sailing, having left Woodhead tunnel was gathering speed on the downhill gradient towards Penistone. As it entered the curve at Bullhouse, the driver felt the engine develop an uneasy roll, but before he could apply the brakes, he heard a crack. A driving wheel axle on the locomotive had snapped, and the resulting spread of the driving wheels distorted the track. A horsebox coupled behind the engine was derailed but remained upright. The coupling between the horsebox and the following carriages failed, and they ran off the rails and down the embankment on the outside of the curve. 24 passengers were killed.
The second unfortunate incident took place on the other side of Penistone station, between Huddersfield Junction and Barnsley Junction, within six months. On January 1st 1885 a special excursion train from stations in the Sheffield area to Liverpool and Southport was climbing towards Penistone. At the same time a train of empty coal wagons travelling in the opposite direction to return the wagons to collieries in South Yorkshire was coming down the gradient and had just passed Huddersfield Junction signal box when an axle on one of the wagons broke. The derailed wagon, belonging to the Kiveton Park Colliery Company, struck the passenger train, ripping through the woooden body of the carriage and killing four people.
It was over four years later when Penistone and rail crashes came together again. On the morning of F.A. Cup Final Day 1889, with Preston North End due to play at Kennington Oval in London, the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway ran an excursion with portions from Liverpool, Southport and Wigan to London, Kings Cross. Although not intended as a football excursion many from the area took advantage to see the team, then considered the best in the country, play. The sections of the train were joined en route and the complete train made its way over the Cheshire Lines Committee tracks to Godley Junction on the Manchester-Sheffield main line (The Woodhead Line) where a new locomotive took over the working. This was a six coupled goods locomotive, a type, which although usually to be found on goods workings, was regularly used on excursion traffic. All went well over the Pennines and the train ran down the gradient towards Penistone station when the locomotive, having no leadings wheels to guide it, jumped the points in front of Huddersfield Junction signal box.
The stretch of line where these accidents occurred is in some of the bleakest scenery in the Pennines, and since neither accident could be conveniently ascribed to human error, the superstitious had a field day. Penistone was reckoned to be an unlucky place to cross the hills. (Other folklore concerned the dangers of asphyxiation if a passenger train were to stall in the Woodhead Tunnels.) All these irrational beliefs hit the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln Railway hard.
The trans-Pennine rail route of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln Railway is now part of the central section of the Trans-Pennine Trail.
See also
Sources
- Red for Danger, L.T.C. Rolt, Pan, ISBN 0-330-25555-X
- The Pensitone Railway Accident & 100 years on, Roger Milnes & Christopher Corroy, "Forward" - The journal of the Great Central Railway Society, Summer 1984.
- The Barnsley Junction Accident & 100 years on, Roger Milnes & Christopher Corry, "Forward" - The journal of the Great Central Railway Society, Winter 1985.
- The Huddersfield Junction Accident and 100 years on, Roger Milnes & Christopher Corry, "Forward" - The journal of the Great Central Railway Society, Spring 1989