File talk:St Johns train crash 1898.jpg

Not from Lewisham train crash in 1857?

According to this article from the excellent London Reconnections blog, this picture is not from the 1857 Lewisham rail crash, but instead from another crash that happened at nearby St Johns station on 21st March 1898, so I have removed it from that article. I realise that blog posts are not suitable sources for Wikipedia, but I'm not using it as a source as such here, and anyway this one is very well researched, and (according to that article) the sidings featured in the picture did not even exist at the time of the 1857 crash. Sadly the later crash doesn't currently seem to have an article, otherwise I would put the picture there. Quietbritishjim (talk) 23:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. I think you're right. That's a shame, but looking again at the photo, it is very possible for it to be from 41 years later. I'll do a bit of research on the St John's Crash (1898). I've always been intrigued by the maid visible in the window of the house in the back ground. Rickedmo (talk) 23:50, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

It's definitely at St John's; there is a station nameboard stating as such (dark letters on light). Look for the footbridge at extreme left; this has two staircases coming down from it. Follow the left-hand staircase down to platform level, continue along the platform to the right to a point immediately above the left-hand end of the second carriage from the left.

Regarding the date: the left-hand wrecked carriage is numbered 1690; assuming that this is a South Eastern Railway carriage, this would be part of a batch of thirds built by the Midland Wagon Co. in 1873, SER nos. 1687-1710 - these were 27 ft long, with five compartments and six wheels. Cushions are visible through the large hole: these would have been unheard-of in a third-class carriage in 1857. The right-hand wrecked "carriage" is a brake van with central guard's office, side lookouts and a roof observatory, with luggage compartments at each end - if this is also a SER vehicle, it cannot date from earlier than 1873. It has a vacuum brake pipe. Other observable details are that the carriages all seem to have oil lighting, and the one at the extreme right has a designated "Smoking" compartment. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:08, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

• Dendy Marshall, C.F.; Kidner, R.W. (1963) [1937]. History of the Southern Railway (2nd ed.). Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0059-X.

Definitely not Lewisham 1857, since at Lewisham, the third-class carriage that got crushed was open-topped (Dendy Marshall & Kidner 1963, p. 304) but in this photo, all the carriages have roofs. Dendy Marshall describes an accident at St Johns when, in thick fog, a passenger train ran into one standing in the station (3 killed, about 20 injured); but gives the date as 21 March 1890 (Dendy Marshall & Kidner 1963, p. 315). This must be a mistake, since the Board of Trade enquiry into the collision at St Johns, which is dated "April 8th, 1898" gives the date of the accident as "the 21st ult.", i.e. 21 March 1898. That BoT report matches Dendy Marshall in terms of location, circumstances, numbers of deaths and injuries, so it must refer to the same accident, despite the date discrepancy. It also gives a list of damaged rolling stock on p.108, where we find that one of the two carriages described as "body broken up" is a third-class, numbered 1690 - an exact match for the one in the photo. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:57, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Fascinating research! Quietbritishjim (talk) 10:53, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, fascinating and well done. The Board of Trade report is more than enough to construct an article with. If nobody else is doing it, I'll get to work.Rickedmo (talk) 13:57, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

New article done St Johns train crash 1898. Rickedmo (talk) 13:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)