The Harrow and Wealdstone Rail Crash | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror

"On the 8th of October, 1952, hundreds of commuters crowded onto a local, London-bound train at Harrow and Wealdstone station..."

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SOCIAL MEDIA:

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:41 - Background
03:15 - The Harrow and Wealdstone Rail Crash
07:57 - The Aftermath

MUSIC:
► "Glass Pond" by Public Memory

SOURCES:

​​​​​​​#Documentary​​​​ #History​​​​​​​​​ #TrueStories​

[vustvaleo]

that boy scout who helped but was still worried he is absent from school thus needed someone to write a letter for his absence is wholesome.

[classicmicroscopy]

Very impressive that a kid could handle the sheer horror of the scene let alone handle it well enough to locate survivors and inform his school of his absence.

[Moontess]

That boy scout Gilbert really went above and beyond - and I loved how he still had the presence of mind to ask a nurse for a note to explain why he was late.

[markmckinney]

Nurse Sweetwine served in the Air Force during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, finally retiring as a USAF major. She passed at 87 in 2009. An honest-to-God hero who deserves to be better known.

[Hannah_Em]

The story of Lt Abbie Sweetwine, the "Angel of Platform 6" is kind of amazing, I'd never heard of her before watching this video. A black female nurse being a commissioned officer in the US armed forces (or any predominantly white armed forces of the time, for that matter) stood out to me as nothing short of remarkable in the era of Jim Crow and segregation, before the US civil rights movement had picked up much momentum. As if her actions during the Harrow and Wealdstone crash weren't proof enough, simply getting to that point to be in the right place at the right time would be an incredible testament to her strength and ability! She was the only nurse of the

Apparently the actions of Lt Sweetwine that day, along with the actions of the rest of the USAF team (in total, 7 doctors in addition to Nurse Sweetwine) are credited with inspiring the development and use of paramedics in the UK, something which I can personally attest has almost certainly saved my life more than once. The ideas of triage and marking patients with information (eg "have they been seen", "have they received morphine") weren't entirely novel at the time, but this crash was reportedly the first time that they'd been used in full-force in a civilian setting, before they were brought to wider public attention in the Korean war by the use and publicisation of things like the US' MASH units.

[spencerhardy]

One other after effect of that crash was the UK ambulance services adopting the battlefield triage system rather than the previous "scoop and run" system, having noted how many casualties had been saved by immediate stabilisation by Sweetwine's team.

[MusicoftheDamned]

For being another disaster I had never heard of before, the intro to this one managed to be extra ominous in light of your two previous videos on the Great Smog and on that London metro accident where most people in the comments seemed to think the unfortunate operator had a type of seizure. Given how many trains were involved in this crash and their rates of speed, the most surprising thing to me is that "only" 112 people died given the amount of people involved.

[levelheaded]

I saw someone else mention this in the comments, but I wanted to add my piece. I like that you treat these stories as what they were: disasters. There are people who lost their lives and loved ones. You tell the stories in a factual, non-sensational way, and that’s what sets your channel apart from similar ones for me. Thank you for sharing

[carynwaters]

Thank you for telling these smaller stories from around the world no matter the year AND you do it without sensationalizing it. You have a wonderful National Geographic voice and your videos are captivating and interesting without being dramatic. Also I appreciate that these videos aren’t 45 min-hour long, they’re short, very informative and includes MANY different mediums of details.

Overall you educate and give all details so there’s nothing left to Google and essentially keep A positive memory of the souls that passed, the survivors and the helpers.

Thank you for all that you do, how you do it! Please don’t stop anytime soon! You’re appreciated ❤️

[gwenstephan]

I have to hope, that if ever I were in a disaster I would be able to keep as cool ahead as these folks. Marking the patients with lipstick was absolutely genius

[cooperised]

I discovered only a few weeks ago that my grandfather was a passenger on the local train that day. He died in the late 1990s without ever (to my knowledge) having talked about the crash.

[beccakate]

My wonderful Nan survived this, after also surviving the war but losing her whole family. She used to tell me about it when I was much younger, how she could hear the wood splintering overhead and how the lady next to her passed away on her lap. Makes me miss her

[RigletDad]

Imagine the orderly and calm reaction to an accident that comes from a war hardened public.

[susanbrown]

Followed a link on Wikipedia about this crash to a 2012 BBC article. It mentioned that Gilbert Powell, the boy scout, got into trouble with his parents after returning home all dirty. After getting cleaned up and changed, he went to school where he was given detention for not showing up in the morning. His parents didn't find out about his heroism at the crash site until later.

[twistedpear]

Stories like these are I think my favourite of yours to listen to. The incident was horrific, but the quick and extremely canny response by those on the scene is inspiring.

[jessicad]

What a perfect example of what can be achieved when a community comes together to help one another 🙌

[llouie]

Your inclusion of the concrete things like Lt Abby's ingenuity, the young scout's determination, and scores of people that come to help then and later on figuring out how to prevent future incidents brings much hope and a sense that we together can do much good - thank you

[briantaylor]

What a catastrophe. RIP to the victims.

That nurse and Boy Scout were real ones, though. Bless them.

[FinnishLapphund]

I like the way you clearly showed how it happened, and not just the more dramatic photos of the aftermath. I also really like that you've included small details which to me made it feel more personal. Like the genious resourcefulness of that American "angel", and that you didn't just mention the scout that helped, without also that it made him late for school.

[savegame]

Princess Anne was a very interesting locomotive. She used to be a turbomotive and used a turbine with moderate sucess before she was rebuilt just before the crash.

But that's not all. After her untimely end the replacement locomotive for her was none other than Duke of Gloucester who's still around and runs often.