Rails to Disaster: More British Steam Train Accidents, 1906-57

Courage, carelessness, quick thinking, incompetence, initiative, panic: all these human strengths and failings have been brought out at different times by the incidents chronicled in Rails to Disaster.

It is the sequel to Trains to Nowhere, the highly successful adaptation by Malcolm Gerard of the late J.A.B. Hamilton's classic British Railway Accidents of the Twentieth Century. Four chapters from Mr Hamilton's original book, omitted from Trains to Nowhere, are here included - the Elliot Junction, Ditton Junction, Darlington and Welwyn (1935) aci-dents. Mr Gerard has also added his own accounts of twelve more disasters, basing his factual accounts on the official inquiry records.

But, like Mr Hamilton, he delves deeper into the characters of the men involved and into what their behaviour immediately before, during and after the accidents tells us about them.

Taken together, the incidents related in Rails to Disaster provide a particular view of the history of British railway practice and technology as well as a fascinating, if sometimes tragic, picture of how ordinary people behave under intense stress.