Alan Bailey worked at Woodlesford in 1964 as part of his railway training. He only spent a few months there but as an enthusiast he took many photographs, and he subsequently wrote an article for the railway history magazine, Backtrack. One of his memories is of the derailment at Stourton of the London St Pancras to Glasgow sleeper service in the early hours of Monday 25 September 1964. The train had passed through Woodlesford minutes earlier. The carriages were badly mangled but luckily none of the 70 passengers was killed and the most serious injury was a broken finger. An inquiry discovered the cause of the accident was that a six wheeled milk tank, coupled next to the engine, jumped the rails near Rothwell Haigh signal box and had run on for over a mile before it hit points near the Wakefield Road signal box. It then overturned, hitting a bridge, and the passenger carriages also left the rails. Click here for the full report at the Railways Archive website.
Click on the links below to listen to Alan Bailey remembering, in 2007, the daily routine and some of the characters he worked with.
Alan Bailey arrives at the Woodlesford booking office
Memories of waybills, parcels and pigeons
Whisky for the brewery livens up the staff coffee
The sleeping car express crashes at Stourton
