The Moorgate tube disaster
I have always been fascinated by disasters, not at all out of any morbid interest in human suffering or loss of life, I want to know what all led up to it? what warnings were there, that perhaps went unheeded? what might have prevented it occuring? and not least what actions have been taken to help ensure there will be no repetition.
We have seen the films of the driverless runaway train as it careered along at an ever increasing speed toward it’s seemingly inevitable doom at a terrifying rate, when just at the last gasp, when all hope seemed abandoned, in the nick of time the hero, or the antihero- cum- good springs forth into action and saves everyone’s bacon. But in the case of the Moorgate tube crash there was to be no such happy ending.
On the morning of February 28 1975 at 8.46am the tube train made up of 6 passenger cars and pulled by motorman 11175 operating on the Highbury branch of the Northern line between Drayton park station and Moorgate terminus, a 7 minute run, instead of braking on arrival, according to witnesses, seemed to accelerate crashing into the single buffer in front of a bricked wall. 43 people were killed either from the impact of the crash or from suffocation, several more succumbed later to their horrific injuries. The cause of the accident has never been satisfactorily established.
listened to the radio 4 prog today. one theory is that one of the stations used to be closed on sundays, and the driver just lost it for a moment, then was about halfway though the morgate station, then dicided to do a run through, ie, go throuigh without stopping, and hence the disaster.
Whatever it was it was tragic, if it were not for the vehement denials of the driver’s wife and family that he was happy and ha no worries I would say it was suicide, but we humans [as you imply] are quirky things.