Hither Green Rail Crash: 1967 Disaster Was One Of London's Worst

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"The normal quiet of this London suburb had been shattered".

On Sunday 5 November 1967, the busy 7.43pm service from Hastings to Charing Cross hit a broken rail, travelling at around 70mph. The front wheels on the third coach were derailed, but the train ran for another quarter of a mile — the wheels turning from red to white hot — until they hit a crossover lead at the points, and then horror ensued.

"There was a big flash," said signalman and witness Albert Harry Norman, "I saw one of the coaches go straight up on its end as the flash started. It was very black that night and the wheels stood out."

11 of the 12 carriages came off the rails by the Hither Green maintenance depot in south-east London, spilling four of the coaches onto their side, and tearing off the sides as if they were made from paper. The effect was devastating, made all the worse by the fact that the train was packed out, with many passengers standing up in the corridors. "They were clamped in the tangled masses of metal," says a matter-of-fact voice in the dramatic, orchestra-soaked British Pathe reports that were wont to follow tragedies like this. At least 49 people died, with 78 more injured.

One of the passengers to escape from the crash was the 17-year-old Bees Gees singer Robin Gibb; at that very moment, the group enjoying their first UK number one with Massachussets. Gibb and his partner Molly Hullis were travelling in a first class carriage, which Gibb later admitted "might well have saved us". But while they only suffered minor injuries, Gibb was very nearly decapitated in the crash and admitted in 2012 that it still haunted him, writing: "Our carriage tilted to one side and then broken glass flew all over us like Niagara Falls. I had long hair, and the glass got tangled in it. It took me days afterwards to remove the shards." Some who'd been standing in the corridors of Gibb's carriage died. Hugh Whittard of the famous tea brand, who at the time was running the business with his brother Dick, was killed in the crash.

A report that came out just under a year later blamed three rail officials for allowing trains to run at 90mph on track that was sub-par. As far as death toll is concerned, it remains the sixth worst train crash to happen in the UK.