A Great Western Railway (GWR) luggage train travelling from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads station entered Sonning Cutting.

The train was made up of the broad-gauge locomotive Hecla, a tender, three third-class passenger carriages, and some heavily laden goods waggons.

[2] An inquest on those killed was opened at 3:00 pm on the same day, in a nearby public house, but The Times's correspondent could not obtain details of the evidence produced there.

However, the GWR watchman responsible for this section of the line had reported that when examined at 5:00 pm on the day before the accident "there was not the slightest appearance of there being any danger of a slip taking place".

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, engineer of the GWR, on hearing of the crash left London with about one hundred workmen, in a special train, to clear the soils from the line.

Brunel, engineer to the GWR and several other "influential gentlemen of the neighbourhood" including Mr R. Palmer MP, lord of the manor in which the crash happened.

The coroner stated that the object of the inquest was to hear evidence as to whether the earth slip that caused the accident had been sudden, or whether "it had occurred after a previous indication, which called-for and required the attention of the railway company...".

The next witness was a bricklayer who said that he knew the cutting well and that about two weeks before the accident he passed over the wooden bridge and on looking down the line towards Twyford he had noticed two slips nearly opposite each another, one on the right and the other on the left.

The soils in the right hand slip, on the southern side of the line where the accident had happened, had fallen between the bank and the rails and amounted to one or two cart-loads and lay "in a sort of circle".

Brunel added that in his opinion the derailment had been caused by a large stone, about two feet square, that had come down with the soils and that had been found where the engine left the line.

At the two inquests, deodands of £1,100 (equivalent to £126,000 in 2023) in total were made on the engine (Hecla), and the trucks, payable to the lord of the manor of Sonning, Robert Palmer JP MP.

Early reports suggested that Palmer intended to share the money between the injured and dependants of those killed, but this he denied, believing that it was very unlikely that the deodand payments would ever be made and that it would be unkind to raise false hopes amongst the potential beneficiaries.