On the evening of Sunday, the 5th of November 1967, the 743 Express Commuter Train was traveling from Hastings to Charing Cross when it came off the rails between Hither Green in Grove Park Railway stations. Shortly before the St. Mildred’s Road Railway bridge in Southeast London, it was quarter pass nine.
The train was traveling at approximately 70 miles per hour in heavy rain when the front wheels of third coach hit the wedged shaped piece of steel that had broken away from the track derailing the coach.
The train continued on in this way for about a mile however, before the derailed wheels hit the cross over lead of a diamond crossing in the up first line. The third couch, the one ahead of it and all the coaches behind were affected. The coupling broke behind the leading coach, which ran forward and finally stops some 200 meters away from the second coach and 700 meter short of hitting the Green Station.
Of the ten carriages that came off the tracks, one over turn completely and another two, jet lagged into their sides. Two of the carriages had their sides totally ripped off. Being a Sunday evening, the train was packed with people traveling back into the city and the carriages and corridors were full. 49 people died in the accident and nearly 80 were injured, 27 seriously.
The rain and darkness meant that the rescuer had a particular difficult task working into flood light to try and free survivors. Two of them were well know of these, were Robin Gibb, the pop group, the Bee Gees and Molly Hullis. Following their narrow escaped, the couple married the next year.
Leniently, the derailment occurred only a month before the 10 year anniversary of the Lewisham Train Crash, which took place just over a mile away and resulted in 90 fatalities. Investigators looking into the crash found that a triangular piece of the track have come away leaving gap. It was believed that the gap had however, being successfully negotiated by previous trains on the busy track. The running offset before and the replacement was a shallow timber one, it had not been well packed.
The running on the rail was supported by a concrete slipper which gave it a very rigid support leading to severe stress on the rail a successive train struck it. But the 743 had a special suspension fitted in order to limit this way of bodies as there were tight clearances in the tunnels on its regular ton bridge Hastings Route.
This course, very high wheel forces at any track irregularities, which probably explains why this train derailed when others didn’t. It was also noted that the speed limit of this section of the railway had been raised from 75 to 90 miles per hour a few months previously and it was though accordingly available resources for basic track maintenance simply become overwhelmed.
The accident results in the speeding up with the introduction of continuous welded rail. The banning of the concrete slippers of the rail joint on the Southern region and also the upgrading of maintenance standards in line with the increased where of course b faster and heavier trains on the tracks.
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