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Darlington Station, Sunday Evening by Ian Scott Massie
Variable Edition Reduction Screen Print - Edition of 10
16" x 12" Mounted size - 10" x 8" Image size
Available: unframed @ £130
To shop, please click here
16" x 12" Mounted size - 10" x 8" Image size
Available: unframed @ £130
To shop, please click here
THE 1928 DARLINGTON RAILWAY ACCIDENT
In 2006 a redundant church in Hetton-le-Hole, County Durham, was set on fire by an arsonist. As the blaze took hold the roof crashed inward and, among the many items lost to the community, was a wooden altar piece: a memorial to the victims of a railway accident.
Late on a June evening in 1928 an excursion train was travelling from Scarborough to Newcastle. It approached Darlington Bank Top station just as a goods train was being assembled by a trainee driver. The goods train was too long to clear a particular set of points and so a manoeuvre was required which would involve bringing the train onto the mainline.
Misreading the signals, the inexperienced driver pulled onto the line, while, in the distance, the eleven coach excursion was rapidly approaching. The guard of the goods train, realising the driver’s error, applied the brakes and heard a whistle which he took to be the driver’s acknowledgement of his action. Sadly the whistle he heard was the sound of the oncoming train.
The collision forced the goods train back 60 yards, the northbound engine fell sideways but the coaches stayed upright. Unfortunately the chassis of one of the coaches ploughed through the woodwork of the coach ahead. Among the 25 deaths were 15 members of the Hetton le Hole branch of the Mothers’ Union.
Hetton le Hole was a community more usually braced for mining disasters. The people of the town were devastated and, in remembrance, commissioned the oak memorial frieze, unveiled a year later by the Bishop of Durham.
How it would look on your wall
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