Year-by-Year - Trent Station

Over the years there have been many events, collisions, derailments and other incidents at Trent Station and the surrounding complex of curves and junctions. Starting before the station itself was built:

1839 Derby-Nottingham line opened.

1847 Erewash Valley line opened.

On the night of 12^th October 1847 some of the waggons in an empty luggage train came off the rails at the Trent Junction points and many were smashed. Some of the telegraph posts were knocked down and the wires tangled up with the wagons, interrupting the telegraph. A train from London, due in at Derby at 11pm, was delayed by more than two hours.

On the morning of 15 Nov 1853, a goods train from Derby to Nottingham was approaching Long Eaton station (on Meadow Lane) in dense fog. The driver didn’t see a stop signal until very close and – with a heavy train and damp rails – he could not stop before hitting a mineral train from Codnor Park which was crossing the line. It hit a coal truck near the back of the southbound train. Although the engine was lying across both lines and some of the rails were torn up, the line was repaired by mid-afternoon. In the meantime, trains had route via Trent Junction.

In January 1854 a train from London Euston to Derby crossed the Trent at 12 to 15 miles an hour, but at Trent junction the points had been mis-set and it ran onto the Nottingham line and hit a train of empty wagons. The engine was derailed and many of the empty wagons were smashed. The carriages of the London train weren’t badly damaged, but there were several injuries. Thomas Argill, the fireman, had a broken leg and dislocated shoulder. Thomas Watts, an American, had broken ribs. Two ladies from Edinburgh and Derby had cuts and bruises, Miss Graffty, who kept a boarding school in Derby had injured knees and head. The engine from the Nottingham train was attached to the coaches and pulled them to Derby, where the Midland Railway’s surgeon dealt with the injured at the Midland Hotel. The fireman was sent to Derby Infirmary.

A similar incident occurred on the evening of 24^th March 1855, when the London to Derby express hit the back of a goods train which was being shunted for the express to pass. The guard’s van was smashed, and the guard was thrown into an empty wagon, escaping with just a few bruises. The engine of the express was derailed. An inquiry attributed the collision to inefficient regulations and a lax system of carrying them out, as well as defective signalling and a want of care on the part of the driver.

In 1855 a young man called William Payne, son of Dr Payne of Nottingham, was travelling between Nottingham and Derby. The two other men in his 2^nd class compartment got out at Trent Junction. The train then called at Sawley station (on the road to Breaston), Draycott and Borrowash. The station master at Borrowash found Payne hanging from the ventilator above the door, with a silk handkerchief around his neck. He was taken to the surgeon at Derby but was dead by the time he arrived. His parents were informed by telegraph and an inquest was held the same day. It found that he’d taken his own life, while suffering from an attack of inflammation of the bowels, to which he was very subject and sometimes deprived him of his senses.

In 1855 there was a large fire at the Midland Railway Sheet Stores. It was supposed that the fire was started by a spark from a passing engine. The fire was discovered by Mr Scott, the manager of the sheet department, who was badly burnt trying to put it out. But the stores contained large quantities of new tarpaulin sheets, oil, tar and other combustibles and the fire spread quickly. A telegraph message was sent to Derby station which sent the company’s fire engine to the scene, but it could not be controlled and the roof collapsed that evening.

On the morning of 1^st January 1858 Thomas Edwards was driving a luggage train from Derby to Rugby when he saw a man about 300 yards past Sawley Junction, walking on the down line towards Trent Junction. He saw the man step onto the up line in front of the engine and blew the whistle, but the man didn’t look round. The last the driver saw was the man’s cap flying off. He was already slowing down for a stop at the coke store. The man was found and brought to the coke store by the fireman (Charles Woodward) and the guard (Francis Seal). He’d been knocked down by the engine’s buffers and run over by the wheels. He was taken by train to Derby Infirmary where both feet were amputated. He survived a week but died after the wounds became infected. The victim was named as Amos Dable, but the surname seems to have been misreported. Amos Deaville was born in Draycott about 1821. In 1848 he married Elizabeth Roome in Wilne. They had four children and lived in the railway cottages at Trent Junction. Amos worked as a lamplighter for the Midland Railway. After the accident Elizabeth (originally from Mackworth) moved to Derby and was employed by the Midland Railway as an officer cleaner.

On the morning of 17^th February 1860 William Pepper, a ganger, was working in Red Hill tunnel, near Trent Junction. The driver of a southbound goods train pointed to show the workers that another goods train was approaching from the Kegworth end of the tunnel. Pepper was crossing over to the other side of the tunnel when the 2nd train struck and killed him instantly. He was 31 and from Sutton Bonnington. Before working for the railway, he’d been an ironstone miner.