This list of railway accidents in the United Kingdom provides details of significant railway crashes in the United Kingdom involving railway rolling stock, but not other railway related incidents such as the Oxford Circus fire of 1984, the King's Cross fire of 1987 or terrorism.
Contents
Worst accidents
The worst accident was the Quintinshill rail disaster in 1915 with 226 dead and 246 injured. Second worst was the 1952 Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash which resulted in 112 deaths and 340 injured. The death toll from the 1957 Lewisham rail crash was 90; for the 1889 Armagh rail disaster it was 80; and for the 1879 Tay Bridge disaster it was 75.
The accident on the London Underground with the highest loss of life was the Moorgate tube crash which occurred on the Northern City Line in 1975 (at the time it was part of the London Underground Network).
1830–1922: Pre-grouping
Before 1830 the Philadelphia (UK) boiler explosion 1815, a boiler explosion of "Brunton's Mechanical Traveller" on a plateway had killed 16 people, mainly sightseers.
London Underground
Despite its age and high usage, train related accidents which have involved passenger fatalities are exceptionally rare, the last major incident to result in these being the Moorgate tube crash in 1975. Derailments in the period 2003–2004 did not result in fatalities, although the Chancery Lane derailment in 2003 led to a closure of the Central line whilst urgent safety checks were undertaken.
Tram and light rail
Some serious accidents have occurred involving trams; the worst one on record took place in Dover in 1917, when a tram ran away down a hill and overturned, killing 11 people and injuring 60. More recently in Croydon in 2016 a tram derailed on a sharp bend and overturned, killing seven people and injuring 50.