Disasters in and around the Crosby, Waterloo and Nth Liverpool area

Just two years after the Waterloo crash another rail calamity occurred in Crosby which eclipsed the events of 1903. This second crash occurred at Hall Road at 6.37pm on Thursday 27 July 1905 when the 6.30pm Liverpool to Southport express collided with a local train 100yds from the Southport platform at Hall Road Station.

The local train, which was due to leave Liverpool Exchange station at 6.20pm and turn around on it's arrival at Hall Road, was supposed to have been shunted into a siding while the express train passed. There seems to have been a difference of opinion as to whether this had in fact happened in time. Some thought that the points had not been closed afterwards, causing the express to divert off-track and crash into the other train, which was stationary. Others thought that the express had jumped the points or that the signalling and points mechanism was faulty. The Hall Road tragedy took the lives of twenty people. The express train struck the local train with such a force that the front end was completely wrecked, buckling underneath the standing coaches and lifting them into the air. Both drivers survived the crash having jumped clear before the impact. The disaster was a controversial one becaues it was one of the first of it's kind to have occurred following the introduction of the electrification to the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway.
An eight 8 page, 3500 word eyewitness account of the Hall road disaster (hall road.zip) details the main events and includes a full list of victims.

Crosby's coast has been the scene of a number of shipwrecks over the years. The coal ship "Heraclides" (right) ran aground at Blundellsands in 1902 and the whole cargo had to be unloaded and transported to the shore by horse-drawn carts. In november 1907 two ships foundered in one night. The ships were the Lily Bynes and the Countess of Devon which were grounded within yards of each other at Blundellsands.
The Captain of the Lily Baynes climbed the rigging with three deck hands and the four of the stayed there, exposed to the gale. At daylight the coastguard saw the men in the rigging, the tide having gone down and the schooner high and dry on the beach! The Countess of Devon went down with all hands on board.
The 'Creek Fisher' (below left) was washed ashore at Blundellsands to the north of Liverpool in the autumn of 1910. A report published in the local newspaper on 5 November 1910 noted that its sister ship the 'Lily Baynes' (below right) had been wrecked off Crosby shore some time ago.

Two further ships to meet disaster at Crosby were the 'Matador' from Riga (below left) and the Montreal Steamship (below right). The 'Matador' from Riga was a three masted barque and was wrecked off Crosby in October 1902. A note on the back of the photograph states that it was wrecked with total loss but does not say whether this was crew or cargo.
The Montreal Steamship Jura is pictured at Crosby Point after it had hit a sandbank.

The 'Matador' being dismantled

The Crosby area has had it's fair share of disasters in the last century not least of which were two train disasters claiming a total death toll of twenty six. The first incident occured at Waterloo station on 15th July 1903 where six people died.
A train arriving from Liverpool collided with the footbridge and ended up on the platform. The force of the impact caused the engine to end up facing the opposite direction.