On this day in Yorkshire 1930

Goods train trucks derailed. Conisborough Line damaged and traffic diverted

Ten trucks a of goods train became derailed near Conisborough L.N.E.R. Station at 12.20 a.m. yesterday, ten minutes before the night mail train was due to leave Doncaster Station.

Trucks crashed into and uprooted a signal post, which, in falling severed the railway and Post Office telephone wires, but it was possible to warn the officials at Doneaster of the accident from a nearby signal box, and the mail train was diverted via Retford.

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Had the trucks travelled few yards further, they would have wrecked the signal post on the other side of the box, and there would have been no means of establishing communication with Doncaster in time to prevent the mail train from leaving.

Break-down gangs from Mexborough and Doncaster were immediately on the scene, but it was not until 5.15 that the track was cleared sufficiently to allow of a single line being used.

The trucks were interlocked and splintered, and the permanent way badly damaged. The line was restored 9.40.

It was found by railway authorities that the level crossing boarding the east end of Conisborough Station had been splintered. and further investigations showed that the line had been fouled for a distance of over two miles, presumably by a brake rod which had caught in a check rail on bend near the of the accident, and derailed the trucks.

The engine did not leave the rails.

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