Robin Jones (4) (1953–)

Even-handed and fair assessment of the reforms that Dr. Richard Beeching put in at British Railways in the early 1960s; the author seems to take the position that Beeching should not have gotten most of the "credit" for the oft-derided cuts in service, and the author points the finger at successive governments for directing the job. The only flaws are maps that don't point out precisely where certain railways were (which would have greatly helped comprehension for non-Brits) and a tendency to use bald lists. Otherwise, interesting.… (mere)

A really interesting and sobering read. It is arranged chronologically and filled with illustrations and focus points in separate boxes to the textual commentary. The descriptions and analysis is quite in depth,with a look at the background to accidents, the incidents themselves, eye witness accounts, investigations and outcomes.

The biggest thing I took away from this was the vast array of similarities between accidents whether they occurred in the 1800s, 1900s, or 2000s. I suppose there are only so many things that can go wrong on a fixed system, however, it was astonishing to me that it often took several incidents of the same type before serious changes were made to safety materials and guidelines.

Of particular interest to me was the Moorgate accident. If it had been investigated now, it would probably have been put down to a loss of situational awareness by the driver, but back in the 1970s, very little was known about this issue affecting people such as pilots, train drivers, long haul truck drivers etc., and it was sad to see how belligerently the investigators went after the dead driver.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of trains, accidents, accident investigation and reporting. A sad, but good read.… (mere)