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Ditton Junction rail crash

1912 disasters in the United Kingdom1912 in England20th century in CheshireAccidents and incidents involving London and North Western RailwayDerailments in England
History of CheshireRail accidents caused by a driver's errorRail transport in CheshireRailway accidents and incidents in CheshireRailway accidents in 1912September 1912 eventsUse British English from November 2013

Ditton Junction is near Widnes on the Liverpool spur of the former London and North Western Railway. This complex junction had eight running lines and associated signal gantries. On 17 September 1912 the 17:30 Chester to Liverpool express was signalled to cross from the fast to the slow line, but the driver, Robert Hughes, age 41, from Llangwstenin, Conwy, who had little experience of the junction and had never been switched here before, misread the signals and thought he had a clear run through. The crossover had a speed limit of 15 mph but the train hit it at 60 mph. The locomotive, a 2-4-0 of the Precedent class turned on its side and travelled some distance, striking the pier of an overbridge (partially demolishing it) and breaking in two. The six carriages following ploughed over the engine and were all destroyed - forming a heap of wreckage between the station platforms. Punctured gaslighting cylinders ignited, turning the scene into an inferno. The driver, fireman and 13 passengers were killed. Blame was attributed by Horatio Arthur Yorke to the driver for not applying for a pilot at Chester. The confusing signalling at the junction was also criticised.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Ditton Junction rail crash (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Ditton Junction rail crash
Harrison Street,

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N 53.35634 ° E -2.76918 °
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Ditton No 1 Junction

Harrison Street
WA8 8TR , Halebank
England, United Kingdom
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Ditton, Cheshire
Ditton, Cheshire

Ditton is a residential area of Widnes, in the borough of Halton, England. It borders Halebank to the south and west, Hough Green to the north and north west and an area just outside Widnes town centre (the Ball o'Ditton) to the east. Formerly within the historic county of Lancashire, Ditton is a local government ward, with a population of 6,249 at the time of the 2001 Census.It has three small areas of shops ("Alexander Drive", "St Michaels" and "Queens Avenue") and the Roman Catholic St Michael's Church - a local example of Gothic Revival architecture. The area also houses two medium-sized industrial estates. There are three public-houses in Ditton; the Blundell Arms, the Yew Tree (now demolished, with apartments built on the land) and the New Inn. To the south east of Ditton runs Ditton Road, which connects the A562 Ashley Way Central Widnes By-pass to the Halebank area of the town. This an industrial stretch of road containing remnants of Widnes' manufacturing and trade, including a chemical plant and large timber yard which sit on an expanse of land which leads to the River Mersey. The area also once contained a popular golf course - St Michaels Municipal, however it closed due to arsenic contamination, which is a reminder of the industrial waste that lies beneath. Ditton railway station, situated on Hale Road between Ditton and Halebank, closed to passengers on 27 May 1994. The site is now a railway junction with concrete remnants of platforms. Near to the former station is Ditton Brook, which runs from the eastern part of Liverpool to Ditton, where it flows into the River Mersey. The River Ditton, runs through the area also flowing into the River Mersey. From 1968, and until, September 2004, a large Asda superstore with a petrol filling station occupied a site opposite just a few hundred yards up the road from the railway station. Asda relocated to a new larger store nearer to Widnes town centre the same year that the old store ceased trading and the former site was redeveloped into industrial units from 2005. Until the late 1990s, Ditton was the site of a large purpose built Golden Wonder factory, where they manufactured crisps. Some years after the Senior Management buy-out of the company from Dalgety, the Widnes site was closed and production transferred to Scunthorpe. A large part of the workforce were Widnes-based, so the decline of the factory exacerbated the problem of unemployment for unskilled and semi-skilled workers in the area. The site of the factory was used as the police station in the BBC TV drama Merseybeat, which was filmed on location in Ditton. The area has recently benefited from new-build housing developments (such as Redrow's Chapel Gate development) with units primarily being purchased by first time buyer owner-occupiers, many of whom are indigenous to the area.