Tragic Turning Point: The Armagh Rail Disaster 

I'm pretty broke these days so I'll just let the ads play, thanks though for the vids Sam! This channel deserves to be over 250k subs immediately. You hear that algorithm? You're sleeping on a gem!

Is the depiction of the height of the railroad over the surrounding terrain at 5:24 accurate? I know railroads do a lot to make everything as flat as they can, or at least they eventually did after Burnel showed them why. But that depiction in the video seems rather extreme especially for an earthen embankment. edit: nevermind, If I was patient, I would have seen the photos. Damn that is a tall, steep embankment.

@@whyjnot420 It's a legitimate question. Trains can't climb a grade of higher than 4%, roughly 110 feet per mile, unless they use a rack rail toothed kickback prevention system or a pulley system.

Hey Brick Immortar, just out of curiosity, what route did you use for the disaster simulation? Love your videos though! Keep it up! -Spitfirelad05 (Corey)

That was, sadly, quite common. Companies often threw their employees under the bus to avoid taking blame.

@@thomasoates3003 Id love to think we were past that but, unfortunately, we certainly aren't. Ex.... That guy at Boeing. They didn't waste a second scapegoating him.

@@TracyA123 It's surprisingly common. In the British NHS, 66% of whistleblowers (people who call attention to unsafe practice or mismanagement) are fired by the NHS or harassed into dropping their charges.

@@thomasoates3003 Omg. That's crazy

Stationmaster was an asshole who only cared about ticket sales.

That's always the issue. Management never listens to the employees cause they think they know everything. Whoever was in charge and didn't listen to the driver should've gone to prison for a long time.

@@froey198033 the reason why we don’t have daily rail disasters is partly because management does usually listen… the few incidents where management didn’t listen doesn’t suddenly equate the usual day to day situation

@@GBOAC Pretty sure the lack of disasters is more due to modern safety features and government oversight. Managers still often ignore their employees, and would be even worse about it if not for the threat of a report to the authorities. I'm sorry I can't find the link, but I read an article last year about how train workers in the US are being pressured by their managers to inspect cars in less and less time, to the point where it is impossible for them to actually check many important areas and parts.

@@pendlera2959 and did some sort of train accident occur between seven months ago and now that may have been caused by that, perchance?

​@@pendlera2959 this is a practice on the Union Pacific. I work for a different railroad. Management and dispatch will sometimes get mad and ask what's taking so long when you're conducting a Class 1 air brake test before you go on the road, but I am allowed to tell them to kick rocks and wait. It depends on who it is

PA native here also. Johnstown would be a very good one for him to cover, thanks for this suggestion. Would love to see it. I remember learning about it in class as a kid, i guess it stuck with me and i went home and made a “model” of the disaster which was just a piece of tupperware full of water and legos. I feel like his video would be far superior to my “creative” interpretation of events

Not to denigrate those floods but at least people talk about those and make videos on them. Up here in southern New England there were a pair of floods in 1955 that caused major damage across no less than 3 states (including New York) caused by 2 hurricanes both hitting a week apart in August of that year. The damage was by no means limited to NY, Ct. & Mass. either. Over _200_ dams in New England suffered full or partial failure due to these 2 floods. There were places in NY that had not been repaired over a decade after the floods, as in bridges that had been washed away which had just stayed like that for years and years. Yet barely anyone talks about them. Mainly it gets attention from local historical societies and history nerds like myself. The general public is somewhat aware that the floods of 1955 were a thing, but not much more than that. Barely anyone ever talks about the massive effort that the Army Corp of Engineers made in building around a hundred million dollars (in 1960s money) worth of dams and other flood protection in the aftermath either. edit: Just to point out some things, a lot of people around here don't even know that it was 2 floods in 1955 even if they know that flooding happened in 1955. And given that it was 66 years ago, the number of people who were old enough to actually remember them has dwindled quite a lot. With so little attention paid to them and the slow removal from living memory, this area is being slowly primed for a reprise once the flood protection built by the army decays enough.

Okay, I misread your calling it engaging as enraging, which honestly, also fits fairly well imo.

I have been in similar coach to those used on that train and I can tell you that it is easy and simple to open the doors, all you need to do is 1. Open the window ( each compartment must have a openable window) 2. Reach out and turn the handle to open the door

@@harryjohnson9215 Yep, it's easy...except when the doors are locked....on the inside AND the outside.

@@MonTube2006 Mmh, troll

@@MonTube2006 I have no clue what you are going on about, but ok

@@MonTube2006 My assumption is that you're trying to portray a train crash in which dozens of children got crushed in wooden train cars and thrown down a steep embankment as a **fucking optical illusion???** ***_From 1889???_***

@@MonTube2006...P**s off.

@MonTube STFU.. Showing your true ignorance!

I definitely enjoy the new direction. Hearing about all these buildings and structures that collapsed were interesting but there's only just a handful you can speak about. Yet things like this, that involve human error or simple accidents, sometimes feel like they're a dime a dozen. But I do love that this is a story I've never heard of. I follow a lot of channels that are somewhat similar and sometimes I'll see the same disaster on 3 channels, all repeating the same basic information. Learning completely new material is great.

Oh I see I thought he was making a dark joke about the train story, lol.

@@florjanbrudar692 It's largely unknown outside of railway enthusiast circles.

Abermule was another disaster.

@@TimothyWorel-xj9he And another incident worthy of coverage.

Yeah that got me too

Deserves to, and I hope will, reach 1m subscribers and many, many more!

how else could you say it

RFD was the first safety film we watched as brand new apprentices back in 1980 when I started working for the Victorian Railways, Melb. Aus. as a signaling technician. Some things you never forget.

Still recommended reading for signallers being "passed out" in Irish Rail.

Excellent book! I have several copies.

@@mce_AU Same here when I joined as a JSA in 83, and again in 87 when I got my Signalman certificates.

This is a common theme to this day with the lack of safety to increase profits, and a lot of the problem lies in the fact that the ones with the power and the funds are never the ones who get directly affected by the consequences.

Ya it was a very sad accident so many young people died that day it happened about 12 miles from where I live, it happened just outside Armagh city northern Ireland

Jeg er din nabo fra Norge, og jeg hadde aldri engang hørt om Hallandsåsen!

Sober? Have you ever met an Irishman?

I'm not familiar with the system in use at the time, but I've never seen stopcocks on an automatic vacuum brake system before and suspect they didn't have them at armagh either. The hoses are normally placed on a dummy fitting which keeps them secure and closes the end of the pipe. Once the vacuum has been blown up it sucks the two firmly together, holding the seal.

@@MrDibbsey Mr Meinders referred to simple (non-automatic) vacuum brakes, and I can see how these might have stop-cocks so that the vacuum could be maintained after decoupling. Have no specific knowledge, though, so only guessing that that is what Mr Meinders meant.

@@kristofburek264 Bert Meinders Being in New Zealand, I'm only experienced in air brakes. But I can't imagine any system of continuous brakes without stopcocks on each end of each vehicle.. But the dummy fitting would explain the immediate loss of braking. Makeshift cost-cutting engineering.

I do not know if anyone has mentioned this but I am sure have read that if bars which were lying at the trackside were pushed in to the wheel spokes they would have braked the carriages effectively.

It required legislation to force the private railway companies to adopt automatic brakes. Armagh was the catalyst for this and also absolute block working.

George Westinghouse set up a British subsidiary firm to make and market his air brake in the UK in 1872, just three years after he set up his original business in the US. Some railway companies did adopt automatic brakes (both Westinghouse air brakes and systems working on vacuum) before the 1889 Act compelled them - notably the Great Eastern, the London Brighton & South Coast, the London, Chatham & Dover, the North Eastern and the big Scottish companies (Caledonian and North British) used Westinghouse air brakes. The GER, LBSCR and LCDR all ran intensive suburban services in and out of London and the air brake's stronger application and quicker release times were necessary to maintain competitive schedules. Interestingly the GER and LCDR were also perennially short of money but still opted to pay for the Westinghouse system - being smaller companies they did not build their brake equipment in-house so would have to buy it in from a supplier. If you're paying for it, you might as well get the more effective system. The attraction of the vacuum system was that it was simpler and cheaper to make and did not involve paying royalties to the inventor, so the big railway companies preferred to make their own vacuum brake equipment in their own workshops.

Sorry, but *disaster

@@MonTube2006 cope

@@MonTube2006 go back to 1871 and really invent it then

thanks!

I'd never heard of it, its insane.

They probably never took any photographs of the actual locomotive

The weight of the carriages and the shove from the forward portion overwhelmed them, see railway brakes in this time, and for long after in the UK, where simple blocks that were cranked into the wheel tire and held it by friction alone. That usually works and even disk brakes work on basically the same principle. But enough weight and momentum will overcome even the strongest resistance.

@@TBone-bz9mp Thank you. That makes sense. If my grandfather were still alive, he would have explained it to me. He was a motor machinist for the RR for 32 years.

Max torque is at low rpm. At zero it tends to get stuck at or near TDC or BDC where working torque is low. You need a little momentum to carry through those points so the cylinders have leverage on the wheels. You’re also limited by wheel grip. Often they can generate enough torque at low speed to spin the wheels which greatly reduces the actual pulling power of the engine.

They were poorly made

How fast were the runaway carriages traveling at though? In the video it was said it was so fast that the hedges couldn't be seen so it's 8kph plus the speed of the carriages so could be 100kph in total or even more.