An Improving Book (1)

fbb has always been unwilling to write blogs about bus or train accidents because those involved, or their friends and family, may well continue to feel the anguish for a long time afterwards. This is particularly hard to take if there has been loss of life.

There is, however, a legitimate reason for reading about accidents from a healthy distance in the past. In many, many cases such "problems" were the spur to improve safety, to invent new technology and to try to prevent something unpleasant ever happening again.

The simple fact is that railways have always been safer than any other means of land transport. Even in the very early days when travel behind the iron horse was occasionally pretty grim, you were much more likely to be killed, injured or robbed on a stagecoach journey than on one made by the risky horrors of steam haulage.

Nowadays you are much much safer in a train than you are in your own home!

The trouble is that the occasional railway accident tends to be spectacular, very newsworthy and so obviously horrific.

Remember Hixon?

Remember Hatfield?

Any loss of life should be totally unnecessary, but compared, say, with road deaths, neither of these accidents was significantly more costly that fatalities on the public highway in one day.

So reading such books need not be ghoulish and it should be both educational and encouraging. Through tragedy things do change and we all benefit from the upgrade of safety measures and the redesign of equipment than can follow such horrors.

There are plenty of such books to read.

Here is just a selection ...

... and, yes, there is a book all about Hixon, alone.

fbb has three such  general books in his collection; from Ian Allan, published 1966 ...

... and by Terry Deary, the Horrible Histories man.

This covers, not just accidents but crime as well. Its rather lurid prose is accompanied by cartoon-type illustrations and, of course, it was written for kids and thus lacks some of the technical detail that helps us oldies understand.

But the daddy of them all has to be L T C (Tom) Rolt's overview of British Railway Accident history, namely "Red For Danger".

It was this volume which, some readers may remember, saved fbb's teaching career when he was faced with a particularly obstreperous class of 15 year old "early leavers" at the start of his secondary education employment.

Reading about and describing (on the blackboard, with chalk - remember that technology) something of the Quintinshill disaster produced the first ever quiet and attentive double period (1 hour and 40 minutes) with 4L way back in Spring 1971.

Without Tom's help, fbb was almost ready to leave teaching, distraught at his inability to control or enthuse this class of disillusioned teens.

Quintinshill returned to the public gaze a few years ago with a programme first broadcast on BBC TV Scotland and later repeated nationally on BBC2. The narrative was based closely on a book on the subject ...

... which challenged some of the historic coverage of this, the worst railway accident in UK history; and all the fault, so we have been told, of two hapless signalmen who did not follow the rules. If you know something of this horror, then the book is a must-read.

As an aside, Adrian Searle is/was an Isle of Wight resident and his boy, Matthew, was at school with fbb's No 1 son. Searle (dad) has developed quite a reputation for historical re-appraisals. He and his co-author write well and the language makes it an easy read, although the content is perhaps less so.

All of this is by the way of an introduction to the flopping through the fbb letter box of a parcel of books sent by an old pal, Vic, from the Island.

The bounteous bundle included this volume ...

... a book which fbb did not know.

It cost Vic just £4.99 and cost fbb nothing - which made it particularly attractive to the old man.

What fascinated fbb with this volume was that it offered a very different approach to the subject - so it demands a review in this blog.

Which will happen tomorrow!

Not Too Scary - A P.S.

Correspondent Andrew sent a picture of the Cardiff Bus approach to dealing with things virustical. He suggests, and fbb concurs, that an approach which focuses more on common sense that crime scene technology is more likely to engender public support rather than public fear or even puiblic ridicule.

Common Sense

You don't need a mask

Remember you are far more likely to catch something by touch ...

... so wash the handies!

And it is not absolutely necessary to sing the National Anthem whilst doing so! 

Maybe best not in Cardiff in case you are a bit less that 2 metres away from a Welsh Nationalist!

Station Hill - A P.S.

Unless you are a megalomaniac dictator of a highly controlled nation, you are unlikely to be able to rebuild a complete town or city. Haussmann did it for Napoleon in Paris creating the boulevards that characterise that city today.

But the stubby-fingered builder of a small outdoor model railway is free to re-jig things according to his slightest whim. Thus it is that yesterday's arrangement of property along the retaining wall at Peterville Quarry station is now in a Mark 2 manifestation.

Blog readers who are bored with lockdown may wish to amuse themselves by making a list of the differences so far - but there will, no doubt, be further amendments before the old man proceeds to the nest mini-ferroequinological project.

 More Disasters blog : Thursday 12th June