However, the driver of this train chose to spend five minutes taking on water at Charfield, something he wasn't booked to do.

The 10:00 pm LMS down passenger and mail express from Leeds to Bristol consisted of Midland Railway Class 3 4-4-0 No.

Of these cars, the parcels van, front composite, both 3rd class Coaches and all four TPO vehicles' lighting was powered by flammable gases.

In the locomotive was driver E.H Aldington and fireman F.C Want whilst in the brake van at the rear of the train was guard Miller.

Aldington had considerable experience running on this line, having been scheduled to work it every five days for eleven weeks.

The 9:15 pm Great Western Railway (GWR) down semi-fitted goods train from Oxley bound for Bristol.

The crew aboard this train consisted of driver Gilbert and fireman H. Sutton in the engine and guard W. Fortune in the brake van.

The crew aboard this train consisted of driver G. Honeyfield and fireman A. Clarke in the engine and guard Callaway.

The GWR tender was flung onto its left side against the north side of the bridge, while the GWR engine became wedged against the abutment, causing the first six vehicles (the parcel van, the other van, the front composite, the two 3rd class carriages and the rear composite) to become wedged under the bridge.

The rear composite and the cars behind it came to an abrupt halt, but remained on the rails, each receiving varying amounts of damage.

The fourteenth wagon had been pushed by the LMS mail locomotive's momentum off the Rails, facing parallel to the down line with minor damage.

As Aldington had applied the brakes of the train and ducked, when the locomotive derailed he was mostly uninjured, although he was buried in coal for ten minutes before he was pulled clear of it.

Even though his brake van was undamaged and remained on the rails, the sudden stop flung Miller from his chair, dislocating his shoulder.

Before Button ordered him to shunt clear, Gilbert saw the Charfield down distant turn to red after his engine passed by it.

In preparation for the shunting activity, Fortune had dismounted his van at Charfield Station and when the train began to shunt, he walked with the train along the platform before following it beside the tracks and was guiding Sutton and Gilbert (Sutton later claimed that he was unable to see anything outside the engine due to the thick fog) into the siding when the collision occurred.

Both men thought that it was nothing serious and continued before stopping the train at the up advance signal which was set to danger by Button after the collision.

In the aftermath of the collision, as in earlier railway crashes at Quintinshill, Hawes Junction and Thirsk, a fire broke out.

Intense fire made identification of the dead and even a complete body count difficult, but it is believed that 15 people died and a further 23 were injured.

According to his daughter, Mrs Smith (née Ayres) in 1999, he made thirteen coffins plus two small boxes.

[5] Seconds after the collision, Button informed the company control office at Fishponds of the accident and requested ambulances, maintenance staff, cranes and other assistance to be sent from Bristol and Gloucester.

Having established that Button had informed Booking and Smith of the obstruction, the stationmaster quickly informed the heads of LMS before making a human chain of rescuers to haul buckets of water to the fire whilst allowing people to take axes to cut their way into the wrecked train.

Button was correct, as he could not have 'pulled off' any down signal, and while the down distant showed clear via the repeater, this was found to be due to debris on the actuating cables and the weight of the debris was not enough to lower the blue lens (semaphore signals were lit with paraffin oil lamps at the time, which gave a distinctly yellowish flame - a blue lens covering the lamp would result in a green light being shown) to show the green light Want claimed to have seen.

When Want and Aldington were sent to trial for manslaughter, neither attempted to excuse themselves because of the poor weather or lack of fogmen, but rather put emphasis on the fact that the distant signal was at clear.

Aldington said when the mail train was approaching Charfield, he was standing behind Want who was keeping his eyes out for signals which both saw as green.

The section from Berkeley Road to Charfield was clear, and therefore Button could accept the LMS night mail from Smith.

[8] The signals at Charfield should have been at danger, since the block system employed left no room for human error on the signalman's part.

To make matters worse Button had accepted the up goods train, which was approaching the road bridge.

It also recommended the installation of the GWR invention of automatic train control, a system which worked by having an insulated steel bar laid centrally between the rails at all distant signals.

However, when the lever was at 'caution', the shoe remained dead and when it was raised it broke an electrical circuit in the locomotive, sounding an alarm whistle in the cab and opening an air valve on the brake pipes, thus clearing the vacuum and applying the automatic vacuum brakes.