The Moorgate Tube Crash Deconstructed
In the same spirit as my column on the Dyatlov Pass Accident I thought I’d cover another historical disaster mystery, the 1975 London Moorgate tube crash. This was a subway train cash where 43 people died immediately, a few more subsequently dies of their injuries. It is the second worst subway disaster in English history. In some ways there’s no mystery at all, in other ways it’s completely baffling. How the accident happened is very simple, a subway reached the end of the line and, instead of stopping, the driver drove through the station into a dead end tunnel. There was no attempt made to stop the train, the train’s throttle was of the “dead man switch” type and the driver kept it at full speed until he hit the wall, he didn’t even throw his hands in front of his face before the impact.
What the hell? Mechanical problems were ruled out. The driver was healthy, with no history of drug use or alcoholism, and none was found in his body. Could he have just spaced out and driven through the station into the wall? It has happened before, but in this case the train hit quite a bump going through the station at normal speed, some passengers were thrown from their chairs, some standing passengers fell down. It’s hard to imagine a jolt like that not snapping him out of a revery. One exotic possibility is that he suffered a type of seizure known as “transient global amnesia” or “dissociative fugue”, a subject I have touched on in another post. In this case he might have been “frozen” in position and been unable to move or even unaware of where he was. However these types of events are very very rare and he had no history of such.
Suicide was also ruled out, the driver was a reliable worker with no history of suicide. He was happily married with family. And he had £300 (approx. $500 USA) in his pocket with which he was going to buy a used car for his daughter on the way home. He certainly had no reason to commit suicide and no indication that he was suicidal. And that basically was that, the cause of the crash remains officially undetermined to this day. At least some good came of it, after this accident all passenger trains and tube trains in Britain were equipped with a device that would apply the brakes if a train was approaching a dead end.
One railroad author and former tube driver, Piers Connor, thinks inattentiveness was the cause of the crash, it apparently caused a similar crash in 1971. In that case the train was empty, and the driver did apply the breaks at the last moment. Unfortunately not soon enough, and he died before reaching the hospital. I suppose it’s possible, maybe the jolt did snap the Moorgate driver out of his revery but he was still disoriented until too late. I dunno though, witnesses on the platform said the driver appeared to be remaining straight up and staring forward even after the bump. Which leads back to suicide, author Laurence Marks, whose father died in the crash and subsequently spent a year investigating it, thinks the crash was deliberate and preplanned since apparently the driver had overrun a platform on at least one other occasion. I dunno though, while people do plan their suicides, they don’t usually take a bunch of folks with them unless they have some terrible grudge.
Myself, I think it was suicide. I think it was a very impulsive things are, as many suicides are. I suspect he was a lot more depressed than people at the time realized, this was 1975 and depression was not as often recognized or diagnosed in those days. And he was an older man, 56, from an era where one simply did not admit mental problems and seek counselling. In fact I think that the daughter’s car money in his pocket is what really points to this, on some level that symbolized his child leaving the nest, this can be extremely stressful for some parents. And stressors can trigger a suicidal impulse, every year a few college students fling themselves off dorm roofs because of a failing grade, it happens.
All in all though, the cause of this crash is mysterious and may always remain so. I just find genuine mysteries interesting. I mean, it has to have a prosaic explanation, doesn’t it? There’s a few other big unexplained accidents and plane crashes and stuff I’ll write about by and by.
God rest the souls of those that died that died, let their families find peace.
(The above image of rescuers at the Moorgate crash site is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law, it is not being used for profit and is central to illustrating the image. There’s very few pictures of this crash on line, I guess this was just before “image journalism” or whatever it’s called began to explode.)
Ric said,
May 14, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Of course if the driver had had a history of suicide, the accident would never have happened… :)
Marc André said,
May 15, 2008 at 7:05 am
I agree with Ric; I think “attempt” is missing here (or “family” before “history”, knowing that survivors of the suicide of a loved one are, statistically, 400% times more likely to commit suicide).
I don’t know much about this event, but I too would tend to think it was suicide. I’m always weary of “no indication that he was suicidal” a lot of people don’t. Some just get up during a family dinner and blow their brains out in the bathroom. As for the money for his daughter’s car, why would that stop him from killing himself. He probably also figure that, being at the front of the train, he might be the only one to die. Also, if he did commit suicide, he was probably in a lot of pain (psychological or otherwise) and couldn’t really think of the others that might die with him.
daphny said,
May 18, 2008 at 11:13 am
man i was going to point out the history thing too but it seems like you already have a bunch of smartasses reading your blog.
anyway ive never heard of this before and it seems pretty obvious that he just killed himself, we didnt live in an information age then so we couldnt have read his livejournal or myspace and figured out what was going on in his head
Thirty-four Years Ago Today « Learning English said,
February 27, 2009 at 8:47 pm
[...] doing a bit of research for this post, I found the following interesting statement on another blog: “Suicide was also ruled out, the driver was a reliable worker with no history of [...]
Phil said,
August 25, 2009 at 9:24 am
How on earth does £300 become $50,000 US?
No more than $600 and I would guess in 1974 probably around $450.
Phil said,
August 25, 2009 at 9:26 am
It is possible that he collapsed in such a way that his body was holding the dead man on.
unitedcats said,
August 25, 2009 at 9:44 am
LOL You’re the first person to catch the US$ thing, yeah, that was ridiculous. Thanks, I edited it.
As for the deadman switch, yes, maybe, but still wouldn’t explain why he went right through the station. I still think it was simply an impulsive suicide, it happens.
Steve said,
December 2, 2009 at 5:31 am
Just listened to a radio programme about Moorgate which suggested another possible cause a bit like inattentiveness. Apparently one of the stations on the line Essex Road is closed on Sundays and when it is closed the lights in the tunnel before the station are put on to remind the driver to go straight through.
That morning, a Friday, the lights were on in the tunnel just before Moorgate. It is suggested that he thought he was coming to Essex Road and thought it was a Sunday.
This small stretch of London subway is immensely borinf to drive apparently as it never goes above surface and sometimes a driver forgets which direction he is actually travelling in.
Plausible I think and the facts would fit with it.
unitedcats said,
December 2, 2009 at 10:54 am
Very plausible, in fact easily the best explanation I have heard yet for the disaster. There has been more than one disaster caused by someone being momentarily inattentive and they got confused about where they were, what they were doing, etc. I might even make a blog post on it.
Thanks!
Doug
Mike said,
December 3, 2009 at 11:30 am
That is interesting, but it was ruled out in the inquest. Platform 9 was filled with passengers waiting to get on for the return trip. There was also a red stop light and sand drag visible all the way, Surely that would have startled him? Also, it would be common practice to slow down when passing through a station that was closed.
The driver actually continued to accelerate through the station into the dead-end tunnel. Passengers on the train testified that there was a big jolt and bang when the it went over the crossover points just before entering the station. People were thrown around the carriages. Surely this would have startled an inattentive driver?
And one of the last people standing at the other end of the platform just before it hit the buffers testified that the driver was still sitting bolt upright in his cabin and applying the controls.
That suggests suicide to me. I remember reading a book about the disaster some time ago that said a few months before it happened the driver had been involved in an incident where he was assaulted by a passanger, and had been given time off to recover. His wife said that this had made him a bit down as well. Perhaps he was a lot more depressed than he let on, and saw this as a way out.
It is a grave charge to lay on someone, given that it was a packed rush hour train and he must have known the danger he was putting the passengers in, but then if you are suicidal, maybe you are unable to think rationally, and maybe he just did it on impulse. We’ll never really know.