Rails on Two Lines Twisted and Sleepers Are Ripped Up
Firemen kept an all-night vigil on September 22, 1971 over wrecked freight waggons at Nocton after a train carrying ammunition and an inflammable chemical jumped the tracks.
The chemical – nitro-cellulose – spilled from plastic sacks being carried in the waggons which left the southbound track.
British Rail engineers and workmen were warned by ICI: “Don’t handle the chemical, keep it damp, and repack it carefully.”
The chemical, a mild explosive unless kept damp, becomes highly inflammable.
Firemen called out from Metheringham and Waddington stations sprayed the chemical while it was being repacked. Metheringham firemen remained at the scene.
Army explosives experts called in by British Rail as soon as the boxes marked ammunition were found in the waggons declared it safe shortly after they arrived.
The boxes contained inert shot – small metal pellets – but no explosive material. They were in the last eight waggons which were not derailed.
The crash happened shortly after 4pm when the middle 10 trucks of the 27-truck train left the rails after rounding a curve.
Rails on both lines were twisted and buckled and wooden sleepers ripped up before the waggons piled into a heap, completely blocking both tracks of the busy Lincoln to Sleaford line. But no-one was injured.
British Rail workmen were soon on the scene and worked under floodlights throughout the night to clear the wreckage.
A special crane was sent from British Rail regional headquarters in Doncaster to lift the damaged trucks.
A special bus service was laid on to transport passengers.
John Beaumont, whose house was only 20 yards from the scene of the crash, said: “Workmen had been working for two days.
“I was just dozing off when I heard the crash. I thought ‘that is not men working’ and I came out to find the crash.”
The train was on its way from the Tyne Tees area to the marshalling yards at Whitemoor, near March.
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