Troop Train Accident - Beighton Sheffield

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Eileen Hayward, and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs. Hayward fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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Phyllis Simms and I were on roster, when an alert call came in: “Proceed to Beighton.” We drove on half-masked sidelights through the black-out; our guess was that it was a pit disaster. How wrong we were! The police directed us to the railway station, likewise the teams who were there before us.

The incident was down on the rail tracks and we had a walk of 200 yards. A 2 cwt (hundredweight, 1 cwt = 50Kg) steel plate protruding from a goods train had cut through the carriages as the troop train passed through at 35 m.p.h. Many service personnel were injured or dying; they had been sitting by the window, asleep, reading or playing cards. Miners coming off work from Waleswood Colliery, helped us with the stretcher cases.

A young soldier I was tending told the sailor who had come to help me, “The navy is too late this time,” and died a few seconds later. I wish his mother could have known we were with him. Phyllis and I arrived back at the station, black with dirt and very tired at 5.35 hrs.

Pr-BR

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