Britain`s rail network is now among the safest in the world, but the journey that brought it to that point has been long & eventful. Early incidents like the felling of William Huskisson MP by Stephenson`s Rocket (1830) showed how new ideas could bring new dangers; yet from disaster came new safety measures, & within fifty years better signalling & braking methods had been made mandatory. The twentieth century saw accident repeatedly lead to action & further advances in rolling stock, track design & train protection systems. Greg Morse charts these changes through the events that helped to prompt them, including the Armagh collision (1889) & the Harrow & Wealdstone disaster (1952). He ends with a railway approaching a new `golden age` in the 1980s
- yet with the tragedy at Clapham Junction (1988) offering a solemn reminder against complacency.