Flashback: Basingstoke man died after falling onto tracks

These Sunday excursions were so popular that the company usually had to run two trains to cater for the crowds that congregated at Waterloo Station.

The Hampshire Independent noted that on Sunday, August 4, 1850, the two trains brought 2,500 people to Southampton, about 700 of whom travelled in two steamboats to the Isle of Wight.

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(Image: Contributed)

Sunday, July 21, 1850, was no different. To cater for the enormous crowd of excursionists on that day, two trains were needed.

The first had 33 carriages, most of which were open wagons that were formerly used for third-class passengers. This left Waterloo at eight o’clock.

The second train followed it 20 minutes later with 15 carriages of the same kind.

At about half past ten when the first train reached Old Basing its engine developed a fault which brought the train almost to a stop.

At this time the second train was nearly a mile away. One of the guards walked down the track and signalled to the driver of the second train to slow down and push the first train to Basingstoke.

As the second train drew near, the passengers in the first train stood up and cheered, waving their hats and handkerchiefs. Some witnesses said the second train approached at about four miles an hour.

When it hit the first train, the impact was such that some of the passengers who had been standing on the seats toppled out of their wagon.

Four of them were slightly injured, but William Jones, who had been standing on the seat at the end of the wagon, fell forward and bounced off the buffers and onto the rail. The last four carriages of the first train went over his head and arm. His head was cut to pieces and his brains scattered over the line.

Railway Arms (Image: Contributed)

In his address to the jury at the inquest held at the Railway Arms in Basingstoke, the coroner, Joseph Shebbeare, blamed the railway companies for running excursion trains on Sundays. He said it was a desecration of the Sabbath and “exercised a most pernicious influence on the morals of the class of persons who usually availed of them”.

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One day in September 1872, as a train from Waterloo was passing through Old Basing, the door of one of the carriages flew open and a four-year-old girl fell out and rolled down the embankment, some 50 feet high, “much to the consternation and alarm of the mother and the other occupants of the carriage”.

With no corridors and no communication cord, there was no means of alerting the authorities until the train reached Basingstoke. An engine was sent back in search, but in the meantime, the cries of the child had attracted attention.

She was carried to Barton’s Mill where she was found to be severely bruised, but otherwise uninjured. Mr Barton took the child to Basingstoke in his horse and cart where she was reunited with her mother.

At about 9.15 in the evening of May 23, 1895, the 8.50 pm train from Waterloo to Southampton ran into the back of the 7.25 pm train from Waterloo to Basingstoke.  

Due to the bursting of a tube on the engine, the 7.25 train had ground to a halt by the Union Workhouse. The driver of the 8.50 train saw the red light at the end of the train in front of him and managed to reduce his speed, but it was not sufficient to prevent a collision.

Luckily, there were two empty horse boxes and a truck at the back of the train, and they were smashed to pieces. The passengers on both trains were shaken up and several received cuts and bruises.

The passengers on the second train were transferred to the first train and brought to Basingstoke where Dr Webb was waiting to receive them, but there were no serious injuries.