Fearful Accident on the North London Railway at Kentish Town Fields, 1861 (litho on paper)

By Unknown (G Schimmels?) ‘The Fearful Accident on The North London Railway, at Kentish Town Fields, on Monday 2nd Sept. 1861, Between 7 & 8 o'clock, pm. - 14 Killed - 16 Injured.' Published 9th September 1861 by Louis Ferdinand Rochefort (picture frame maker, b1814) 15 Crown St., Finsbury, London. At approximately 7.13 pm on Monday September 2nd, 1861, an excursion train travelling from Kew to Bow on the current Overground line had just passed Kentish Town Station (now Gospel Oak Station) when it ran into a goods train which was in the process of crossing the tracks. The crash took place on the line 450 yards from the station on an elevated section of the track. The excursion train was an addition to the scheduled service and had left Kew an hour earlier than expected. A quarter of a mile past the station it hit a goods train which, because of the curve in the line, was not visible until it was too late. The engine of the excursion train was thrown off the rails falling down the embankment, dragging with it six passenger carriages. Sixteen people were killed and 317 injured, most of whom came from the Bow area. Ironically the outing was to raise funds for the railway benevolent association and nearly all passengers were employees or families of employees of a local railway company. It was the first major rail crash in London and it generated considerable press attention both in London and throughout the country. Initial coverage was fairly gruesome, describing in great detail the injuries sustained. The passenger coaches were of very flimsy construction with most of the deaths occurring in the first few coaches thrown down the embankment. A bystander wrote to the Evening standard on September 6th ‘…my astonishment at their frail and wholly inadequate construction … the panellings were only third of an inch in thickness…’ Lloyds weekly newspaper described the incident as railway slaughter and railway passengers were ‘human sacrifice to mammon’, with the blame placed directly on to directors and shareholders for putting profits before lives.