DMU Accident

Carnforth Up Furness line at Bottom End Yard - 05/02/88

On the evening (about 19:00 to 20:00) of Friday 5th February 1988 two-car Carlisle Kingmoor Class 108 set 54250 (leading) + 53967 on a service from Barrow-in-Furness emerged from under the road bridge at Warton beside Midland Bottom End Yard at Carnforth and struck an engineer's wagon. The leading bogie of the DMU became detached and the body rode over the wagon. There were minor injuries to passengers (the DTC contained just six passengers), with one lady requiring Hospital treatment.

The long welded rail train for the forthcoming weekends work was being reversed into No.1 sidings in the dark. Moving at slow speed, the shunting crew were unaware that they had stuck wagons already in the siding, propelling one through the buffers, derailing it to foul the Up Furness line.

The two DMU vehicles remained in the yard for some time (turned 180 degrees from the way the incident happened), hidden from public view behind Engineer's wagons. Records show that 54250 (grounded in the images) was withdrawn on February 7th, and would eventually be cut up there. 53967 would be transferred in May to Chester, for it to be withdrawn a month later. It seems unlikely that such extensive damage would be repaired for such a short duration back in traffic. The vehicle for sure made it to Doncaster Works, one possibility was it was send to Doncaster at the time of transfer, but it was found to be uneconomical to repair and withdrawn.

The images of the vehicles in the yard below show that the bodies themselves seem to have sustained minimal damage, but considerable destruction to underframe components and bogies.

All images by Andrew Pilkington.