Comments by "Big Blue" (@bigblue6917) on "Quintinshill, the Worst Railway Disaster in British History" video.

  1. Having something of an interest in British railway I did know about this accident. I will say that even in peacetime signalmen often had a very difficult job. On some branchlines it was not unusual for them to work a fourteen hour day, or even longer. And it was equally not unusual for them to work anything up to ten or twelve days at a time without a break. And if an accident did occur then they would be taken to court where they were more often then not found guilty and have served a prison sentence would be out of work. This could be made worse if you lived in a railway house as you and your family would now be homeless. I did notice a Great Eastern Railway (GER) 4=4=0 Claud Hamilton in there (8:15) The GER covered East Anglia and Essex and East London north of the Thames. During the Great War their normal royal blue livery was replace by grey, though fully lined in red as it was in peacetime. The royal blue paint was used by the Royal Navy as part of their dazzle camouflage paint scheme. So, ironically GER locomotives were battleship grey. In there day they ran the most intensive steam operated commutator service in the world and their main London engine shed was the largest with over 500 locomotives sheded there.
    10
  2. mom2wyatt history is full of such incidents, as you no doubt know. Mary Robinette Kowal's "Want Of A Nail" springs to mind.
    4
  3. Tls papa As you say he may have been just coming on but how many days had he done before then without a break. And just arriving, being late, he would probably been rushing to take over so the man he was replacing and on top of all of that they were in the middle the troop movement. And then they were also short of people because of those who had left to join up.
    2
  4. Nate Enochs I have watch a number of Indy Neidell's videos and I have to say I have found a number of factual inaccuracies in them. I felt he had read a couple of books and was then giving his opinion on what he read.
    1