Great Western Railway accidents include several notable incidents that influenced rail safety in the United Kingdom.

Recent heavy rain had saturated the soil in the cutting causing it to slip, covering the line on which the train was travelling.

In the ensuing investigation, the company was criticised not for the landslip (the civil engineering was deemed adequate) but for the inadequate state of the third class open wagon coaches, which failed to protect the passengers either from the weather or from being thrown out when the accident occurred.

The Shipton-on-Cherwell train crash was caused by the fracture of a single wheel on an old carriage just behind the locomotive's tender.

The weather was very cold that day, with snow blanketing the fields and very low freezing temperatures, another factor which hastened the tyre failure.