St John's Lewisham - 50 Years on Restoring Traffic

On 4th December 1957, WJ Trew, as he had done on many previous occasions previously, was driving the 4.56 pm steam-hauled express passenger train through south-east London from Cannon Street to Ramsgate conveying city workers and Christmas shoppers back to their homes, on this occasion, as so often at the time of year, in a thick London fog. His failure to locate and hence respond to two warning colour light signals led him to approach the final red signal, requiring him to stop his train, at a speed estimated at 30 mph or more. This was much too close to prevent him crashing heavily into the crowded stationary suburban electric train ahead of him. By stroke of misfortune the impact took place under a heavy steel flyover carrying other tracks and the derailed tender of his locomotive knocked out one of the overbridge's supports causing it to fall on the leading coaches of his own train. This book tells the story of what happened next.