Railway Disasters are almost always the result of human fallibility
- a single mistake by an engine-driver guard or signalman or some lack of communication between them
- & it is in the short distance between the trivial error & its terrible consequence that the drama of the railway accident lies. First published in 1955 & the result of Rolts careful investigation & study of the verbatim reports & findings by H.M. Inspectorate of Railways" this book was the first work to record the history of railway disasters & it remains the classic account. It covers every major accident on British railways between 1840 & 1957 which resulted in a change in railway working practice & reveals the evolution of safety devices & methods which came to make the British railway carriage one of the safest modes of transport in the world. This edition uses the last text produced by Rolt himself in 1966 &
Includes:: a new introduction by his friend & fellow railway historian Professor Jack Simmons."