Richard M. Jones has made it his mission to remember people of forgotten disasters
After spending several years working to bring it to fruition, an East Yorkshire man is releasing a book on an historic rail disaster in Hull. This will be the 28th book published by Bridlington author and historian Richard M. Jones.
The book is entitled Paragon ’27 – The Hull Rail Disaster and focuses on the morning of February 14, 1927 when a train was heading into Hull Paragon railway station full of children and commuters travelling from Withernsea. A signalling mistake near where Hull Royal Infirmary stands today led to it being on the same track as an outbound train heading to Scarborough.
With both trains now on a head-on collision course the drivers attempted to stop the trains but at around 10mph the two trains collided. While the locomotives were fairly undamaged, the first carriage of the Withernsea train telescoped into the solid mass of the train itself, killing eight people instantly and leading to another four others dying of their injuries in the coming days.
Several of the people on the train, including one of the drivers, was from Bridlington. Richard said: “In 2021 I featured this disaster in my book, Britain’s Lost Tragedies Uncovered.
“For many years there had been a memorial behind Hull Royal overlooking the crash site but this was removed due to construction of the helipad for the air ambulance. It was during a discussion with a train driver friend of mine that he mentioned that I had put a memorial up and written a book about Burton Agnes and the Lockington rail crashes, so why not get the last one documented properly?”
READ MORE: New memorial at Hull Paragon station honours victims of historic rail disaster
Richard set to work gathering information together along with support for a new memorial. This was unveiled on the 98th anniversary of the disaster, in February this year, by Richard Kitching, grandson of one of the victims and son of one of the child survivors.
After pulling together his final interviews, photographs and details, Richard’s material was collated into a book by Juliette Jones Editorial Services. It will be available in paperback, hardback and on Kindle from November 3.
Richard said: “This has been a fascinating journey into a slice of Hull and railway history that has never before had the story properly told. I am highlighting the heroes of Hull who broke the wall nearby in order to evacuate casualties and those who stopped at nothing to extract injured survivors from the wreckage of the train carriage.”
Richard said he wanted to thank everyone who had played a part in bringing the book to publication. “I am grateful for their support and help during the last few years and would like to say a personal thank you, not only for myself but on behalf of the people who lost somebody in this disaster that has led to the story being told and the memorial being put up.”
For more information or to order signed copies of Paragon ’27 – The Hull Rail Disaster you can contact Richard by email at shipwreckdata@yahoo.co.uk or via Facebook at facebook.com/shipwreck.data
“This has been a very busy year,” Richard said, “with four other books having been released since August. One of them was also on rail disasters in the Yorkshire region.”