The Radstock rail accident took place on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway in south west England, on 7 August 1876.
However, on the single-line section between the crossing places at the stations at Radstock and Wellow, the S&D Railway had constructed a signal box at Foxcote.
Ostensibly, this was to control a spur to Braysdown Colliery, but it was often used to allow two trains (travelling in the same direction) at once into the Radstock-Wellow section, in defiance of Regulations.
At the same time, the telegraph control office at Glastonbury had no direct link with Foxcote, and could only contact it via Radstock or Wellow.
The replies to their enquiries from the telegraph clerk at Wellow (who was only fifteen, and trying to do the work of the stationmaster who had gone for a drink in Midford) were vague.
Although the clerk at Wellow, Arthur Hillard, might normally have been expected to be blamed, it was felt to be unjust to place the entire responsibility on a fifteen-year-old youth doing the job of several senior staff in an environment of such corporate misconduct.
Greater blame was attached to Stationmaster Sleep of Wellow, who had left Hillard alone and gone for a drink in Midford, but it was shared with senior management, including the Superintendent of the Line, Mr. Difford, for specific actions and also "for the general want of uniformity between the regulations and the practice, the laxity of discipline, and the inefficiency and long hours of servants, disclosed during the inquiry."
Tyler, went so far as to say, having cited seven separate major failings in operational procedures, "Railway traffic worked under such conditions cannot, whatever the system employed, [be] expected to be carried on without serious accidents.