Tom was a career Railwayman starting on the Western region, then Midland finishing on the Southern region. He says drawing on my experience of working in Operations managing signalmen and involvement with accidents and investigations we will look at some of the causes of some historical accidents and review these in the light of what we know today.
Historical Railway Accidents (eg. Quintinshill 1915, Harrow 1952, Lewisham 1953, all of which involved great loss of life and numerous injuries) where we look at the sequence of events leading up to the disasters - to fully understand these I will give a detailed account with tuition of the modes of signalling involved and the operating practices of the time. We will look at the causes and the changes these accidents brought about in order to make the Railway the exceptionally safe form of transport which it is today.

4 sessions: 15/09, 20/10, 17/11 and 15/12