Claremorris Train Crash September 1989

[Noel]

Some very interesting photos. Fortunately these coaches seem to have been cravens so did not crush like match wood employed in earlier laminates, park royals and breeding. A lucky escape for most considering it was a packed knock special.

https://www.historicalballinrobe.org/places/mayo-and-irish-history/claremorris_train_crash_site_-_sept_1989

[Mol_PMB]

3 minutes ago, Noel said:

Some very interesting photos. Fortunately these coaches seem to have been cravens so did not crush like match wood employed in earlier laminates, park royals and breeding. A lucky escape for most considering it was a packed knock special.

https://www.historicalballinrobe.org/places/mayo-and-irish-history/claremorris_train_crash_site_-_sept_1989

Fascinating - many thanks for sharing. As you say, the stronger coaches played a major part in minimising the casualties, thank God. That lesson had been learnt at Buttevant but it took a while before enough new vehicles were purchased to displace the old wooden-framed coaches.

look away now if you are squeamish...

It's interesting to see the front end of the locos. In my experience a loco that crashes into a herd of cows ends up predominantly green (from stomach contents).

 

 

[Mayner]

One of the more interesting aspects of the collision was that the farmer had apparrently adapted the practice of moving stock along the line between scheduled services and was caught unawares by the Knock Special.

The reports into the derailment of the Knock Special and the 93 Knockcrockery derailments on the Mayo Line are not available on the RAIU website but should be discoverable under freedom of information.

The whole business of Government(Ministerial) knowledge of CIEs concerns with the crashworthiness of older coaching stock is an interesting one and in this day and age would warrant Government Ministers, Senior Civil Servants and CIE Board members being held to account.

In Annual Reports and no doubt meetings with the Department of Transport the CIE Chairman raised serious concerns with the crashworthyness of existing stock and expressed frustration with the (FF) Governments failure to approve the construction of new stock.

At the time CIE was persuing a joint venture with LHB to build railway coaches for its own use and export at Inchacore, the Transport Minister who represented Longford-Westmeath refused to approve the project. The MK3 project assembling BREL kitsets at Inchacore was approved following the Cherryville Junction collision by a FG Minister of Transport who represented the Ballyfermot Constituency where CIE & the Works was an important employer. 

Things could have turned out significantly different during the past 40 years if the Government had approved the CIE-LHB joint venture with GM locos hauling Continental rather than British outline stock, would Irish modellers have turned to HO rather than OO?

Edited yesterday at 10:04 by Mayner