A Terrible Train Crash October 8th 1952

Harrow and Wealdstone

By Terry Trainor

A Terrible Train Crash October 8th 1952  

In 1952 the South Oxhey Estate was filling up the new council houses. The displaced people from London had been moving in since 1947. With new residents transferred from London escaping overcrowding, slums and the housing shortages caused by the Blitz. Many of the newcomers still worked in London and it was a long journey to London and back on top of a days work. They would get the train from Carpenders Park Station a slow train which stops 18 times between Watford Junction and Euston. To cut down traveling time the South Oxhey Residents would take the slow train to Harrow & Wealdstone and change onto an express that went, non-stop to Euston. On the morning of 8 October 1952 one of the most serious accidents in United Kingdom railway history took place at Harrow & Wealdstone station, just north of London on the main line from Euston. A southbound express ran into the back of a local train standing in the station; another express, northbound from Euston, then ran into the wreckage. 112 people were killed, a death-toll second only to the Quintinshill disaster of 1915. This event shocked the nation, and much controversy followed over where the blame lay.