Talk:List of rail accidents in the United Kingdom

Accident causing closure of Carlisle freight line 1 May 1984

This incident appears to be little documented, but failure to connect a brake pipe on a freight train resulted in a divided train, the rear half of which ran away and demolished key infrastructure on the freight line through Carlisle at 60mph (a 20mph line) including a river bridge. Had the rear half followed the front (as it would have to today) there would be major destruction of Carlisle Citadel station. Quite notable for what did not happen and was avoided as much as the damage caused which while extensive did not result in loss of life. Very few references, but here is a photo to verify what happened:- https://www.flickr.com/photos/16224165@N04/5544395876 and another reference here:- http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=6622 31.51.220.144 (talk) 14:07, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Pre-1830 accidents and fatalities

This list is perpetuating the myth that William Huskisson was the first person to be killed by a train, by excluding the pre 1830 entries. This list should be merged with or borrow from [List of rail accidents (before 1880)] to avoid confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LMRT (talk • contribs) 21:16, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

19/11/1958

The number of deaths is said to be none and five. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.1.37.70 (talk) 15:20, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Removal listed as a hoax

SK2242, Regarding this edit on the List of rail accidents, why have you deleted it and labelled it as a hoax? Maybe a slight rewording and the addition of a cite, maybe it is not worthy of inclusion as no-one was injured, but a hoax? It wasn't on 1 April. The joy of all things (talk) 10:41, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

References

It wasn't sourced, for a start - it looks WP:EXCEPTIONAL. It also wasn't written very well - damaging the HST and IET very badly, train near Neville Hill, East Leeds.The HST was struck of service Then there is the last phrase - and taken to a local scrap yard whilst the Class 800 was taken to a depot to be fixed which reads like these events occurred straight away, rather like your car had dinged a wall busting a headlamp, and so you'd taken it to Joe's Motors to be repaired. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

....and SK2242 put it back, not that I was arguing for its inclusion, just wondered why he said it was a hoax? I have included enough cites to show reliability and I did say maybe it is not worthy of inclusion as no-one was injured. The joy of all things (talk) 15:48, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah sorry about that, I was busy so I only had time to revert my edit. SK2242 (talk) 18:15, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Inclusion of minor mishaps of no consequence and no secondary sourcing

I tried to work out from the top of this talk-page what are the criteria for inclusion, but failed. My motivation was removal of a level-crossing accident at Appleford, sourced only to the Accident Archive. It was a very minor accident in which one person was injured. The accident archive site contains scanned copies of accident reports of just about every reportable incident on the UK railway system since 1840, amounting to well over 9000 incidents. Presumably there is no intention to record every one of them here, as our WP list is described as being of "significant" accidents. The accident reports in the accident archive site, while very reliable, are very much primary data. I would assume this list should be of accidents sufficiently notable to have made it into books or non-trivial newspaper articles (a good definition of "significant"). Anything that cannot be sourced except to a report by the rail investigators is probably not notable enough for the list. Elemimele (talk) 13:17, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree, if you read the archive discussions above, this has been discussed several times before but there was never an agreement. Maybe it's worth being WP:BOLD and trimming the list down to something more sensible. G-13114 (talk) 14:31, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, I've trimmed a few more off the end of the post-privatisation list. I've done them individually or in small batches in case people need to revert. It can be tricky to assess notability. For example, Whitacre junction is sourced to a newspaper but I don't think it's notable. Any rail accident nowadays will generate an article in the local news (if it's in London, it'll be in the national news) with reports of "major disruption", but if it's just a minor mishap that closed the line for the rest of the day, with no one injured, just a lot of angry commuters, I am not sure it's notable. On the other hand, Ely West junction is sourced only to the accident report, but it closed all navigation on the river Ouse for three months and had extended coverage at least in the local newspapers, so its lack of sourcing here is plain laziness on the part of whoever added it. Elemimele (talk) 13:30, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I've readded the Kirkby train crash and 2021 Salisbury rail crash which you removed because they have over 10 injuries and their own articles. Hope that's okay! greyzxq ^talk 13:43, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes entirely, I should have checked those two. I should also have moved a better citation into this list, but I'm not sure which of the sources to use from their own articles. Elemimele (talk) 14:56, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Just looked at the Kirkby train crash article and it says that one one person was injured, so feel free to remove that. I’ll probably check every entry now to make sure the numbers of injured and dead are actually correct. About the sources to use, just use any as long as they support the info you’re citing, remember you can use more than one source if needed! greyzxq ^talk 15:03, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Cases such as Kirkby train crash which pass notability guidelines really ought to be listed for navigational purposes if nothing else. Garuda3 (talk) 15:38, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, and I was mistaken to remove Kirkby. There are some accidents with stand-alone articles that seem to me to be shaky, for example Spa Road Junction, which I've nominated for deletion. But I'm not a deletionist by nature. My belief is that many rail accidents have been truly notable, through their consequences for society at large, or because they shaped future politics and development of the rail industry. If we distill these out and present them to our readers, they learn something. If we hide them amongst a huge morass of minor buffer-bumps, we make it very hard for our readers to see the bigger picture: i.e. we're hiding trees in a forest. But I completely welcome those editors who correct me when I take a chainsaw to the wrong tree. Elemimele (talk) 22:02, 14 January 2023 (UTC)