Setting the scene
Goyt Valley before the Midland Railway came. View from near Church Rd, New Mills
White defect blog seems adjacent to smallholding called Nob Hall – new line ran below it. Marsh Lane
ran above it.
Note sports huts on the floodplain – cricket & other sports always played here.
Originally, the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway planned an extension to cross the valley
and join the LNWR line near Whaley Bridge, and even stared building (presumably as a placeholder) a
small section of track and bridge close to where Gowhole yard was later built. The bridge can still be
seen. When the MR and the Manchester Sheffield & Lincs chose to go into partnership, it was no longer
needed.
New Mills, and indeed Derbyshire, had many planned lines that never got built. Earthworks were started
for a line from Newtown to Hayfield, and can be seen in two places. Across the county there were dozens
of proposals, including an electric tram from Chinley to Buxton and the Cat and Fiddle.
The story of two fierce competitors - Midland Railway and London & North Western Railway.
The red line shows MR route to Manchester – slightly longer than the LNWR route shown in black
Note Hindlow on LNWR route to Ashbourne and the old Cromford and High Peak line to Whaley Bridge.
Blue stars mark the two crash sites . First was inside Dove Holes tunnel, creating a runaway for 8 miles
which then collided with passenger train at New Mills, which became the second runaway
Whaley Bridge, Furness Vale and Newtown had a train service on this side of the valley 9 years before the
Midland Railway came. Look how steep your line is, a steady 1 in 60 for many miles to Buxton.
The later MR line was mostly a gradient of 1 in 90 from New Mills up to Buxton
. See how Dove Holes Tunnel has the same steep slope.
Dove Holes tunnel was a nightmare to build, and a challenge to maintain ever since.
It saw off three construction companies. Built on boundary of Dark Peak millstone & White Peak
limestone. Acidic peaty water dissolves limestone making holes, cavities, and underground streams.
3 streams were encountered. Took 5 years, construction must have started before rest of line. Pumps
needed throughout construction. Channel between tracks in tunnel drained water but constantly blocked
up with sticky limestone slurry. The ballast stone around the tracks was constantly washed away.
Left: approach from Chapel side - Right: constructing ventilation shaft from top of hill. Nightmare for
locomotive crews, especially when two or three freight trains followed each other up the gradient,
after waiting to let a passenger train through. Seven tunnel vents were not enough to clear it. ‘thick
enough to cut with a knife” The track was on a 1 in 90 climb going south. Slippy wet rails too.
Going north, downhill on wet slippy rails was no fun either.
Road bridge at Peak Dale village. Peak Forest Station footings and door frames just being laid out. Peak
Forest Station – identical design to Longstone, Millers Dale, Chinley and Bugsworth.
Contractor’s loco with trucks is heading towards the tunnel. On the hill are temporary accommodation
for all the workers.
Right. new tunnel burrows under the London and North Western line, close to Chapel South Station.
Must have been tunnelled and lined with bricks bit by bit, so avoid closing top line - ‘The Wessie’ in
railway parlance.
At Bugsworth, a five-arch viaduct took the line over the valley with embankments each side. Station just
out of view on left behind trees. Brierley Green is behind the viaduct. The stone hut is still there today.
This is what Bugsworth station looked like when built. A masonry passenger shelter on our side of tracks,
blocking our view of main station building. A road bridge adjacent to the station plus embankment leading
to the viaduct. In fact this is Millers Dale station as originally built, which has very similar geography.
But the Bugsworth road bridge by the station was always iron, originally and subsequently. Thanks to the
History Society for the floor plan of the station.
You can still see a pillar near the road and station building at Bugsworth, which supported the original
rail bridge over the road near the station. Purple engineering bricks, now covered with creepers.
At New Mills, a new tunnel, then a bridge, took the line over the River Sett
From New Mills Station to Manchester, the line belonged to the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire
Railway, and it became a joint line with the Midland as partners.
The stations (including Hayfield) remained MSLR responsibility. But New Mills Goods Depot at bottom
of Church Rd (now the Coop) belonged to the Midland. Terrace of staff housing built on corner of Hyde
Bank Rd and Church Rd, is still there. Behind was a timber stables for goods shed delivery horses.
On Saturday 22 Sept, a special carriage being pushed rather than pulled took inspecting officer Capt Rich,
senior MR officers & contractor directors, to inspect the line to approve it for opening. For Rich and his
staff, this was to inspect each element of the new line, check against the plans, and make notes on
recommendations for improvements. Without his Board of Trade approval, the line could not open.
Inspectors were independent of the railways, preventing them ‘marking own homework’. They were
knowledgeable members of the Royal Engineers, and their word was law. The previous Tuesday,
contractors handed over the line to MR. Special train left Derby with Inspector Needham and all the new
staff for the line extension, carrying their luggage, to be dropped off at new stations. On the train’s return,
2 senior Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway officers were shown the line. Approval given, the
line opened on 1 Oct 1866 to freight traffic. Passenger train opening scheduled for 1 Nov.
Only 3 weeks later came a PR disaster for the Midland Railway. Opening to passengers was impossible.
No one knew the line was built on unstable layers of shale. October was exceedingly wet. On Thursday
25th, on the original line in red , the embankment beyond the viaduct (Chinley end) subsided by a foot.
Panic. Passenger services were due to start in days. Ballast was tipped in to level up the tracks. By the
following Tuesday, 14 ft of ballast had been added to the embankment – obviously a lost cause. Finally,
on Wednesday 31 Oct, the entire hillside slid down towards the Black Brook , including the Chinley end
road bridge arch and abutment . Emergency solution – a wooden trestle bridge up the hill nearer to
Brierley Green. Within two weeks, 400 workers were on site, building a 940 ft long trestle. New
wrought iron road bridges each end. Track slewed over in a dog’s leg. Bugsworth station back became its
front . Note wide curved timber platform area marked in blue needed .
Here is the wooden trestle bridge in use. The entire five arch viaduct moved a short distance down the
hill but remained largely intact. (and survived nearly 20 years in this condition).
So much land slid down into the Black Brook, it was blocked and cut itself a new channel.
The land below the line going down to the Black Brook is still very undulating and lumpy. Slight artistic
licence makes it look more like Switzerland.
This track layout lasted till a straightening project of 1884-5 when a new embankment was built
between the old and new lines. After approval of the new track, the timber trestle bridge was dismantled.
Sadly Furness Vale man Benjamin Mycock was killed March 1886 during dismantling the bridge.
Capt Rich was back only 4 months after approving the line, to inspect and certify the trestle viaduct, in a simple handwritten letter written that evening in his hotel.
Now its 1867. The timber trestle deviation has been open all year. On Monday 9 Sept, MR planned to
fight back against LNWR. 12 direct trains a day each way between Buxton and Manchester. 6 were
non-stop 1st and 2nd class, taking 1 hour. LNW trains on the Furness Vale line took 1 hr 20 (or 1 hr 30
if stopping at every station, with only 8 each way during the day. This was war, sadly with casualties.
MR trains from Buxton started on the Midland part of the twin stations , designed by Paxton. This 1870s
view shows the original combined entrance through a gated wall.
The North Western trains to Manchester left from the near station.
Buxton MR shed turned out fast green locos like this for the service. Longer route but less steep. But a
one hour schedule very ambitious. 100 years later, some will remember the equivalent train, the 8.00 am
and 5.22pm businessmen’s Buxton to Manchester and return, which remained steam hauled right up to
1968. Despite running on the faster route to Manchester Central through Disley Tunnel, with powerful
express locos, though stopping at Chinley, Chapel and Peak Forest, it took 1 hr 5 mins
New trains started or terminated at Manchester London Rd station , travelling over Marple & Chapel
Milton viaducts. Midland Railway engines were painted green in 1867, only changing to red in 1883.
After Peak Forest, trains took the junction to run through beautiful Ashwood Dale into Buxton. What is
now the A6 on right. The British Film Foundation have a free online film taken from a train on this line
in about 1897.
The Events of 1867
Meet Martha Vaines nearly 12. She lives in Hallstead Row in Dove Holes with her father and two
younger siblings Hannah and Walter. Mother Frances – died 2 years before. Martha is likely substitute
mum to them and no longer at school. Samuel is a blacksmith, probably meaning industrial fabrication
in local quarries industry. Today they’d would be seen as vulnerable family at risk – due to a previous
court case about Samuel providing poor care, maybe due to shock from losing his wife.
On September 9th, Martha is sent to a boot repairers in Chapel to collect boots for her father. Perhaps
here or similar one. Any Chapel experts Identify it? Maybe she walked, maybe came by train from Peak
Forest Station (only 1 mile from Dove Holes).
Or maybe she uses this repairer in Chapel Market Place . Shop is now The Old Cell bar.
Martha arrives at Chapel Station at 5.15pm to find her train has gone. Possibly train times had changed
with the new timetable that day. In a small community, she is doubtless known to station staff. And a
train IS waiting!
Staff offer her a lift to Peak Forest Station on a 9-truck ballast train waiting at the station. So at 5.25pm,
she sets off in guards van, crammed in with 36 gangers. Their instructions are to proceed through the
tunnel to Peak Forest, then return on the down line and stop to drop their ballast. No doubt to save time,
they chose to do it from the up line. Grateful thanks to Derby Silk Mill museum layout for setting up
these re-enactment scenes. Their layout station model is based on Bakewell, same design as Chapel’s.
Dove Holes Tunnel had constant problems with ballast (the stones under the tracks) being washed out
from under the track, so this was ongoing maintenance.
Now things start to go wrong through multiple instances of slack working culture.
The fireman is at the pub and has not returned, leaving the driver to operate the loco alone. Perfectly
doable since only travelling a few miles. Probably an engine based at Buxton shed. The guard rides with
the driver, not in his van, a dereliction of duty.
When the train goes into the tunnel, by railway rules the guard or flagman should return down the track
and protect the train with detonators – small warning explosive caps which bang when a train passes over.
Not done. The gangers are not railway staff, but an ad hoc contract team to do a quick job. They were
likely recruited from mainly quarry workers in Chapel or Peak Forest, and paid a lump sum, so the
quicker they could be home, the better. It was a quick job – 36 men to shovel the ballast out of 9 trucks,
4 per truck. They trust the signalman at Chapel to prevent following trains following them. The train
proceeds a mile into tunnel and stops at the location for dropping ballast. Martha is left alone in the dark
in the guards van while the gangers set to work.
Meanwhile, meet the second train in our tragedy. The cattle train is to take sheep and cattle from
Liverpool docks to Birmingham. 27 cattle trucks, 1000 head of sheep and cattle. Plus a four-wheel
carriage for 9 ‘drovers’ to care for the animals, in fact 8 butchers and cattle dealers who had bought the
livestock, all but one from Birmingham, plus one helper. Maybe bought stock at dockside auction, or
already purchased by an agent. Essentially a charter train for their stock purchase, all destined for
Birmingham. Here we see sheep leaving a ship at Liverpool, and Princes Dock in the 1860s. Cattle
wagons would be waiting for the cargo. Movement of cattle by rail began in 1831, and rapidly replaced
drovers moving flocks on foot across the country. Drovers had to be licensed.
Shockingly, it was permissible to keep cows and pigs in a cattle truck for 27 hours, and sheep for 36.
But this train was fast, with two locos for speed and braking power as back then cattle trucks had no
continuous brakes controlled by the driver.
Here are Midland cattle trucks, covered with lime to disinfect them, and reeking with the smell of stock .
Stopped at Chapel station, the smell would be very noticeable. The other photo shows a drover taking
pigs through Deritend in central Birmingham, the only way to deliver to butchers or abbatoir.
Cattle train probably left Liverpool early afternoon, scheduled to arrive in Birmingham mid evening. It had likely travelled early morning from Birmingham to Liverpool empty except for the drovers in their coach, which was probably an old contraption with wooden seats. The train travelled over a rail network in Cheshire/Lancashire operated by a consortium called the Cheshire Lines Committee. The MR was a member. On reaching Godley Junction just beyond Romiley, the train joined the line through Romiley passing through New Mills at 4.55pm, and reaching Chapel at 5.25 to stop for water for the second engine and attend to the livestock. An average speed of 25mph from Godley, good speed for a freight train. Cattle trains were given priority. The lead driver was James Needham of Gorton, Manchester. Here’s our re-enactment, with the second loco stopped at water column
Now things go from bad to worse. The next station after Chapel was Peak Forest, at the other end of
Dove Holes Tunnel. Both had signal boxes, but not as we remember them– little more than a kiosk on
the station platform, containing a cumbersome ‘speaking telegraph’ machine.
The ‘speaking telegraph’ was forerunner of the later railway ‘block equipment’, virtually failsafe. It
wasn’t voice equipment (phones were not invented yet). Short coded messages spelled out abbreviations
letter by letter (though it was not a morse code). Communication breaks down between the signalman at
Peak Forest, William Knight, and the signalman at Chapel, Phillip Hubbart. William Knight had been a
house servant until two months earlier, and had received some training at two other signal boxes on the
line. which was grossly inadequate for any safety-critical job. At the time when the Chapel signalman
sends a request to send the cattle train through, Knight is not at his post, but running an errand for his
stationmaster. Knight comes back to his equipment and sees its needle still moving, and sends a garbled
message back. Hubbart misinterprets this as all clear to send the cattle train on. Knight may have
forgotten he had allowed the ballast train into his section.
So the cattle train is signalled to depart from Chapel station and climbs the one-mile bank towards
Dove Holes tunnel. Two views of the north end of the tunnel, one from Midand days, and a modern
cab view . Note the tunnel water draining out of a small duct. About 5 minutes after the ballast train
entered the tunnel, the cattle train follows, climbing at about 15mph. A mile in, it hits the guards van
of the stationary ballast train around 5.45pm. The gangers will have heard the terrifying sound of an
approaching train and run to shelters. No one seems to have remembered poor Martha or made an
attempt to reach her. The poor girl, in the dark in the van, will hear the approaching noise, maybe not
realising the danger. She dies instantly as the brake van is crushed, along with the next two ballast trucks.
Three more trucks were derailed, and the shock wave detached the stationary loco from the ballast trucks.
3 or 4 of the ballast team slightly injured, the rest unhurt, including the four crew on the two cattle train
locomotives.
This gives some sense of the aftermath of the crash though depicting a different tunnel crash. Imagine it!
Noise. Metal on metal. Timber splintering. The bellowing of terrified animals. Smoke, dust and soot
everywhere. The safety valves of the locos letting off steam. The realisation that Martha could not have
survived. And for the cattle train locomotive crews, the shock that not only are their locomotives
derailed, but the coupling to the train has broken and the cattle trucks are rolling back down the tunnel.
All they could do was damp down the fires and try to get more water into the boilers.
With such lights as they have, the 42 men of the ballast team and train crews pick their way through
dark, smoke and dust along the tunnel nearly half a mile to the south portal of the tunnel, then another
half mile to Peak Forest station. The fastest railwayman would surely attempt to run ahead to warn trains
coming the other way. The escaping men will be relieved as they approach south portal of the tunnel.
Meanwhile the staff at Peak Forest station are surely panicking. They have lost track of two trains, as
well as telegraphic connection to Chapel (telegraph lines were damaged by the crash). And very possibly
they hear the sound of the impact echo out of the tunnel. Porter Newton seems to have been first on the
scene, and poor signaller Knight was also sent to investigate. What they find is groups of dust and
soot-covered men in shock, streaked with water, staggering along the long tunnel approach.
Now the cattle train is rolling backwards out of the tunnel, gaining speed. Without automatic brakes,
the guards van brakes won’t hold the train. Even today, when freight trains have brakes on every wagon,
drivers take great care on the down grade through the tunnel and beyond. The guard shouts to the
9 drovers looking out of their windows to jump. He knows how runaway trains usually end up, and the
rear vehicles most at risk. The guard and John Latham, George Wall, John Wilcox (all of Birmingham)
and Charles Simkins of Nottingham made the right call and bale out.
Drovers Wall and Simkins, both injured, are taken to recuperate overnight in The King’s Arms
on Chapel’s marketplace, a short walk from the station. Simkins seems to have broken a bone in his foot.
Colleagues Latham and Wilcox likely also stay at the King’s Arms, both unsurprisingly have significant
scratches and bruising. But the other five drovers make the wrong choice and stay in their carriage for an
increasingly terrifying ride.
any problem – telegraph wires are cut in tunnel. This is only known photo of Chapel showing station
life, random passengers, milk-churns etc.
vibration. Chinley Chapel Manse on the left.
The cattle train still gaining speed through Chinley old station, still on the wrong ie left hand track here.
The stationmaster possibly not on duty. Note the old Squirrel pub, later replaced by the Princes Hotel.
Then through Bugsworth Station at about 5.55pm, ten minutes after the crash in Dove Holes Tunnel.
It is probably Signal Man Richard Coe age 20 who sends a telegraph warning down to New Mills Goods
Station signal box. No warning has come to him from further up the line, probably due to damage to the
telegraph wires in Dove Holes Tunnel. Train is doing 50+mph at this point. Richard Coe was later a
longtime stationmaster at Great Longstone Station (right).
Immediately after the station came Bugsworth Tunnel, later opened up into a deep cutting when two extra
ttracks added in 1904
Now we jump back to the new non-stop service from Manchester to Buxton. The 5.20pm train from
Manchester London Rd passes through New Mills Central Station past Torr Vale Mill . Driver Thomas
Cooper 27 of Buxton has likely already done one or two return runs. The 5.20 has top priority, and a
local train at New Mills is shunted out of the way into a siding.
Re-enactment represents Sett River viaduct after tunnel to New Mills Central station.
The train had a van at each end and three coaches. First van probably for milk, last van probably guards
van and luggage.
Canal with Bangs Bridge. Across the valley is Lady Pit Colliery and siding, chimney , ventilation shaft
Residents of Furness Vale and Newtown have a clear view of new Midland Railway line.
This is a actually a later photo after Gowhole yard built. Long freight train is setting into a siding before
reversing into the yard, but the view is almost identical to 1867
Unexpectedly, the 5.20 gets a stop signal at New Mills Goods Station box (bigger than hut shown , but
not as grand as later box). This prestige new service must not be held up. The general manager of
Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway Robert Underdown and his wife Lydia, were on board
for a first day ride. So surprised is George Lofts, manager of the goods station, already back at home on
Hyde Bank Rd, that he makes his way from the back garden and walks up the line to see what was amiss.
The fireman and guard likewise walk to the signal box to ask signalman William Waring the problem.
(Waring lived on Laneside Rd). Problem is, he can’t get a reply to his telegraph message to Bugsworth
Station to allow train into that section. Reason – Richard Coe at Bugsworth was coding a short then
longer message about the runaway. This was barely received, when the three men in or close to the signal
box see the cattle train appearing round the slight bend near Marsh Lane and Nob Hall, in a cloud of dust
and straw.
View of line from Furness Vale shows slight curve by Nob Hall smallholding, with goods station signal
box just out of sight far left . Marsh Lane on right.
Train becomes visible to the 5.20 train crew, and signalman as it rounds the curve near Nob Hall.
Anyone looking across from Furness Vale must be surprised to see a fast goods train with no engine.
At about 6pm, 6000 people in New Mills and also surely Hayfield, Furness Vale, Whaley bridge and
beyond– hear enormous drawn out crashes, metal on metal, crumpling wood, bellows and bleating of
animals, clouds of dust. Every New Mills family with loved ones working in a mill or print works feel
a stab of fear. Has a mill has collapsed or boiler exploded? 6000 versions of ‘what was that’ or stronger
are screamed, shouted or whispered. 6pm was when mill workers would be leaving work. Anxious
crowds surge onto streets and follow the noise and clouds of dust, slowly realising it’s a train crash.
New Mills doctors Grinrod and Ward attend, along with police. Rail staff in the area and other residents
come in to help in rescue and recovery.
Note: in 1867 no Midland Terrace , virtually no Church Rd houses no New/Jubilee Streets , no Union
Rd bridge Runaway train hits the passenger train, already moving backwards. Cattle trucks pile up each
side of Church Rd bridge.
Here’s the 1880 OS map. Crash site blue star Note original smaller goods shed , signal box and the
stop signal marked . Terrace of railway cottages No houses on Church Rd Tollgate at end of Marsh Lane
No Union Rd or bridge
Of the five drovers who dared not jump out near Dove Holes Tunnel, two die instantly in the impact
with the 5.20 train, and two so grievously injured they die within hours. All four from Birmingham:
Edward Chambers, Robert Emuss, John Joseph Jones, Joseph Wheeler are taken to the Hayfield
Workhouse at Low Leighton. Workhouses were starting to evolve into hospitals at this time. It had a
male and female ward with morgue. A fifth, John Baker of Birmingham, has a mangled foot and is
taken to Stockport Infirmary where his leg is amputated. After starting to recover, he dies several
weeks later. This was before germ theory and proper aseptic conditions.
Driver Cooper remains in the cab, and with the runaway train approaching, his quick thinking prevents
things becoming even worse. He takes the brakes off, and puts the engine into reverse. Then jumps off.
The cattle train hits the engine, which has already moved about 15 yards and continues to accelerate
away. Driver Cooper is hit but was hit by debris and is significantly injured.
The station staff hear the crash, having received the Bugsworth runaway train message too. But probably
no one expects the Buxton train to emerge backwards from the tunnel, on the ‘wrong’ line.
The train looks like this as it passes through the station backwards. The stationmaster sends a warning
telegraph to Marple Station, which the train will pass through about 8 mins later, still on the ‘up’ line.
There was another ballast train approaching Marple on the same line. A quick thinking signalman at
Marple switches the runaway train over onto the proper ‘down’ line, which must have been another
huge shake-up for the terrified passengers. Mercifully no one was seriously injured. Being a non-corridor
train, there was no option for anyone to reach the guards van to apply brakes.
Strines Station in Midland Days, between New Mills and Marple. This is the station that inspired
E Nesbit to write The Railway Children.
Runaway train enters Marple station on the right-hand track and is switched over by points at far end
of station to the correct track.
Without coal being added to the fire, and possibly exacerbated by damage, the train slows down on the
slight rising gradient towards Romiley Station, and stops right here, on the left-hand track.
Church Rd bridge, looking towards the Goods Depot, where the Coop is now.
A breakdown train was sent from Manchester. No big steam cranes then, all hand power. Much of the
recovery was by teams of men pulling ropes.
Matchwood from the cattle trucks is piled into bonfires to light the scene. Animals injured beyond recovery are euthanised at the scene. Surprisingly many survive, and are led to temporary pasture in fields below Marsh Lane. Note the crowds on Church Rd bridge , many are volunteers helping on the ropes and recovery operation. Spectators are sitting on the bank on the left where Midland Terrace would later be built. Dead animals lie everywhere, the smell must have been awful.
View from the other side of Church Rd bridge, the artist positioned where Co-op car park now is.
Inquests were always held in the community where death occurred, within 1 or 2 days. Real challenge
to arrange a venue and call witnesses and a jury in such a short timeframe. Locations were often hotels
with a function room and secure cellar or storage for bodies. A hotel could also provide drinks and
refreshments when needed. The Midland Hotel, Peak Dale, not yet fully opened or licensed.
The longstanding coroner Dr Robert Bennet of Buxton presided. The Midland Railway sent a special
train from Derby to Peak Forest Station. , bringing Midland officers and no doubt legal officers, to not
only observe and record for their own internal inquiry, but hope to reduce reputational damaged to the
railway.
Note limestone industry and narrow gauge railway here.
Midland Railway officials would hear much embarrassing detail emerging that today would have
probably lead to both individual charges of involuntary manslaughter and corporate manslaughter.
It was not a simple open and shut case, but a long session with many witness statements, the jury did
not retire till 7.30pm, returning after 20 minutes an ‘accidental death’ verdict, but with strong riders
about individual failures and railway training, which the coroner made a point of publicly endorsing.
After the first inquest, Martha’s body is released for burial the next day at St Thomas Becket, Chapel,
Rev Frederick Birch taking the service. There is no memorial stone, quite common then even for people
with the resources to buy one. None of the drovers, relatively prosperous men, appear to have a stone
memorial either.
To bury a child and in such circumstances, was beyond awful. It is tragic irony that the crash site in
Dove Holes tunnel was close to the family home in Hallsteads, just 60 feet below the ground. The
impact may well have been felt in the house, and across Dove Holes.
Martha’s two younger siblings Walter and Hannah moved after the accident with their father back to
Ashover, their home area. But Walter and Hannah later returned to live in Chapel, and adult older
sister and brother Charles also stayed in the Buxton area. There are still many Vaines in Chapel and
Ashover areas.
Sadly a descendant, Arthur Blamey Vanes was a platelayer on the railway and died in Jan 1910 at an
accident at New Smithy at the railway junction. Chillingly at the inquest, it was said that platelayers
were expected to be ‘be their own lookout’.
Back to the Workhouse in Low Leighton for second inquest on the New Mills deaths. New jurors, some
original witnesses, but also New Mills railway staff, doctor and other participants too. Originally
scheduled for 11am Thursday at a New Mills hotel, it was brought forward to the evening of the same
day. The coroner maybe wanted to listen to both cases on the same day, as there were common witnesses
and common accident causes. Was he leant on by the MR? The special train conveyed the coroner, his
staff, witnesses, and Midland Railway officers from Peak Forest to New Mills. They maybe alighted at
New Mills goods depot as it was nearer, and the train could wait there till the end of the inquest. We can
guess a fleet of horse cabs took participants up to Low Leighton Rd.
The inquest did not start till 9am, and continued till midnight, 1am or 2am according to different
newspaper accounts. The family of one of the drovers, Charles Wheeler was angry that bringing
forward the inquest prevented their lawyer being able to come. They were also angry that a pertinent
witness was not called, impossible without an adjournment. Finally, with the same verdict given, the
special train departed taking witnesses back to Chapel and Peak Forest, with (we may guess) a cab back
to Buxton for the coroner. Very late nights for all, especially those from Derby.
Picture depicts typical Victorian inquest, with coroner , witness box ,, note-taking officials, a jury
(all men in those days ). Witnesses would be called in one by one, but not hear the rest of the evidence i
n case it coloured their own. The New Mills inquest would have been in the upstairs boardroom of the
workhouse. With the New Mills inquest complete, the bodies could be released.
morning train via Derby and then Birmingham New St station arriving at 2.25pm, Either that day or the
following, two drovers were buried in Perry Barr cemetery, and one, Charles Wheeler, in the very peaceful
Warstone Lane cemetery in the Jewellery Quarter.
Here is Warstone Lane cemetery.
Left behind were drover John Baker who died later in hospital, and their homeless helper John Joseph
Jones buried later, perhaps when relatives were found.
Lieut-Col Frederick Henry Rich, Royal Engineers (was promoted from Capt May 1867) was inspecting
officer of the railways for many years and chief officer 1885-9. He obviously had a side-line in conjuring.
He has his own Wikipedia entry. His task was not only inspecting new railway installations, but
investigating rail accidents. He would begin his investigation after the inquests were complete, paying
site visits and interviewing witnesses.
instructions and the railway Rule Book. We may guess he conducted his inquiry at the station, or
perhaps in his hotel rooms. He states that the evidence of the ballast train driver, fireman and guard was
‘altogether false’. Others seem to have been economical with the truth. He called in Superintendent
Hudson of Chapel Police to assist with his inquiries and attempt to apply pressure on witnesses to be
truthful. He slated the ‘speaking telegraph’ system as inadequate and urged MR to upgrade to proper
block signalling with better training. He noted that continuous brakes on cattle trucks would have
prevented the runaway. Staff at the Bugsworth, New Mills and Marple end were exemplary in conduct
and received no criticism..
100 years later, trains of mineral wagons still ran up and down the challenging Peak line, with no brakes
on the wagon that could be controlled by the driver. Although there were occasional small runaways,
they were quickly caught by stop points, and nothing so serious happened again. But it almost did
during WW2. In 1944, an ammunition train from Hyde to Bristol went through Dove Holes Tunnel,
couplings to the engines broke approaching Peak Forest, and train ran back towards Chapel. A pile up
and explosion could have killed many and taken out many houses in Chapel, Chinley, New Mills, or
the Chapel Milton viaducts. A quick-thinking signalman diverted it up the Hope Valley line where it
came to rest. The story never made the papers, only becoming public 50 years later in goods guard
Jack Merrett’s memoirs.
The Soham disaster shows what happens when a single truck of munitions explode.
Mercifully, there were also no accidental explosions at RAF Harpur Hill, Buxton, the largest munition
base in the country. But RAF Fould munitions store in Staffordshire blew up in 1944 causing enormous
damage and some deaths, with windows being broken in Derby 15 miles away, as older residents still
remember.
and bravery of Driver John Axon and Guard John Creamer are remembered by the Friends of Chapel
station in a ceremony each February anniversary.
So maybe we can also take a few moments to remember our crash victims, 159 years later.
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