Based on the accident at Lindal-in-Furness in 1892
T'was a very stormy 09.00 in the morning on the Wales & Borders Railway. Rupert Griffiths, Mr Griffiths' Father was telling the others a story which happened a long time ago, "The wind was fierce, and the rain was coming down heavily, about 130 years ago, Thursday 22 September 1892, a D1 Class 0-6-0 locomotive no.115, built by the firm of Sharp Stewart, was hauling a Distribution working around Lindal-in-Furness, I was about 8 years old back when this happened, I saw everything as I was on the embankment when this heartbreaking incident happened, it was the most saddest train accident in the whole of the UK" he said, "What happened? What made it the most sad train accident in the UK?" asked the Halton, "I remember now" said Mr Griffiths, the railway director, "I remember the old controller of the railway, telling me about this incident in about 1956, when I first started this railway, when there were no 60103 or 8572, just older locomotives, like E2 tank engines, D1s and N2s", he was most shocked that the subject had popped up, this incident made the whole village upset, they were sad about the accident, and were worried it might happen to their own homes.
"What happens next will shock you all", continued Rupert, "Go on, tell us, please?" the others asked, "Ok fine, but this might make you upset, when 115 was hauling a freight train from Dalton-in-Furness to Lindal-in-Furness, it was windy and the rain was coming down fiercely, it had made the ground soft, there were 8 railway lines running across the yard, and as a shunter had shunted a truck, it disconnected from his coupling chain, and flew down line 4. A small crack could be seen under the lines 3-5, the shunter didn't see the crack and neither did the workmen, the ground couldn't take the weight of a loco only rolling stock, I was worried, I shouted to the Workmen, 'THE GROUND IS CRUMBLING!!', and it did, the ground couldn't take the weight of the engine, the ground collapsed underneath the track, it created a huge hole, it was so massive, the hole opened from line 2-7, but as the minutes went by, the hole grew deeper and deeper, it ended up going an extra 60 feet deep, it swallowed up 300 wagons worth of ballast".
"Passengers on the 2.57 from Carnforth were forced to abandon the train and had to walk down the adjacent road to Lindal Station, where another train took them on to Barrow. Thirteen conveyances were chartered, including large brakes, buses and horse-drawn carts for their luggage, but there was worse news coming up for the engine, the breakdown members of Alfie's Garage came to rescue the locomotive, they used a steam shovel to scoop up some of the ballast around the loco, the engine was very heavy to pull out with it's tender, so they did something unusual, they put a man in the bucket of the steam shovel and lowered him down into the hole in order to uncouple the tender from the locomotive, then they pulled the tender up but sadly the engines was too heavy for the Breakdown Crane to pull him so they had to leave him in the hole, If it was a tank engine it would be easier for it to be pulled out, but unfortunately the locomotive is still down there today, and has not been recovered since, and that concludes our story for today, I hope you enjoyed it". This story left the crew a little shocked for the rest of the day.
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The Wales & Borders Railway
Short StoryBased on Thomas & Friends, but is in wales with different characters, engines and vehicles still talk, but don't have faces
