It was, and remains, Britain’s worst Tube crash.
Exactly 50 years ago, a Northern Line train travelling 40mph ploughed into the thick concrete wall that marked the end of the track at Moorgate station.
It was a disaster that killed 43 people and left 74 injured.
Exactly why driver Leslie Newson did not stop remains a mystery – and some believe that he deliberately did not apply the brakes.
Now, one of the firemen who worked to rescue trapped passengers on the day has recalled the ‘absolute carnage’ of what he encountered.
Frank Daniell, 78, recounted to MailOnline in horrifying detail what he called ‘the worst incident of my career’.
He remembers having to stand on the bodies of dead commuters to get into the twisted wreckage of train 272.
Mr Daniell and his colleagues worked to rescue passengers including newly-qualified policewoman Margaret Liles and businessman Jeff Benton.
Shortly before 9am exactly 50 years ago, a speeding Northern Line train ploughed into the thick concrete wall that marked the end of the track at Moorgate station. It was a disaster that killed 43 people and left 74 injured
Rescuers help a shocked female victim from the scene following the Moorgate Tube crash
Ms Liles, then 19, had to have her foot amputated so she could be rescued but was able to recover; Mr Benton tragically died soon after being rescued. Both were trapped for hours.
Mr Daniell was among the rescuers who were first on the scene after the train crashed at 8.46am on the morning of February 28.
Newson’s locomotive had knocked over a red warning light, ploughed through a sand-drag and collided with a hydraulic buffer at the end of the platform.
The driver was seen by witnesses sitting upright in his cab, making no effort to stop.
The first carriage was forced off its wheel chassis and into the top of the 5ft thick concrete wall blocking the tunnel.
What had been a 52ft-long carriage crumpled into just 20ft. Behind it, the second carriage was driven forward under its rear.
The wheels of the first sliced through the roof of the second, killing some of the passengers.
As for the third carriage, it ploughed into the rear of the second, crushing it.
Train 272 was being driven by Leslie Newson. Mystery remains over whether or not he deliberately did not stop his locomotive, or if he had some kind of medical episode
In stark contrast to this carnage, the last three carriages were largely undamaged.
Mr Daniell, who worked out of Lambeth Fire Station, said: ‘It was absolute carnage.
‘The gruesome details are that going down the side [of the carriages] there were people who had been mutilated, decapitated.
‘To get into the carriage, you were just standing on dead bodies.’
He added: ‘It was just absolutely horrendous. It was the worst incident of my career.’
Once inside the wreckage, Mr Daniell found a man and woman who he said were ‘trapped in a sitting position’.
Thankfully, the pair were rescued relatively easily.
The attention then turned to Ms Liles and Mr Benton, who were both conscious and talking.
Fireman Frank Daniell in 1982. He was among the first on the scene after the Moorgate crash
Soot-covered survivors are pictured waiting in an ambulance before being taken to hospital following the Moorgate Tube crash
Policewoman Margaret Liles is seen on a stretcher after being cut free from the wreckage, 12 hours after the crash
Firemen squeeze down the side of the wreckage after the Moorgate disaster
Mr Daniell remembers how the businessman was effectively sitting on his fellow passenger, but it was easier to rescue her first.
‘She was desperate and was calling out, “cut my leg off”,’ Mr Daniell said.
A surgeon was summoned from St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Mr Benton had to watch as his fellow passenger’s foot was sawn off under anaesthetic.
The amputation had finished by 8.55pm, and Ms Liles was carried out of the train. Her rescue allowed Mr Benton to be freed to.
Until his stint on the operation finished mid-afternoon, Mr Daniell stayed with the trapped pair.
He said of Mr Benton: ‘He was saying, “hold my hand, I’m not afraid”, but the guy was actually terrified.’
Tragically, he died of his injuries a month later.
Mr Daniell added: ‘I had never experienced anything like that previously and certainly haven’t since.’
Firemen shine a torch into the remains of the first carriage following the crash
The fireman, who began his career in the early 1960s, went on to work until 1992, when he had to retire due to a severe injury he suffered in the line of duty.
It was only weeks ago that he went back to Moorgate for the first time, and is attending anniversary commemorations there today.
‘That’s the first time I’ve been through the station since, in 50 years. It gave me a very strange feeling,’ Mr Daniell said.
Newson, a veteran of Dunkirk, joined the London Underground as a guard in 1969. He became a driver six years later.
On the morning of the disaster, he kissed his wife goodbye and then left their flat in New Cross, South-East London.
He arrived at Drayton Park Station for the start of his shift shortly after 6am. Waiting for him on platform three was a six-carriage Northern Line train.
It weighed 151 tonnes and could carry up to 600 passengers.
His first journey of the day was just two miles to Moorgate.
In his pocket was £270 to buy a new car for his daughter after his shift. Once at Moorgate, Newson had a cup of tea with signalman Walter Wade.
He then walked back to his train with his 18-year-old colleague, guard Robert Harris.
By 8.39am, Newson and his train were back at Drayton Park, where passengers were mostly scrambling to get on the first three carriages to be close to the exit at Moorgate.
At Highbury and Islington station, journalist Peter Paterson was waiting for a train to take him to an interview with Industry Secretary Tony Benn.
Firemen inside one of the carriages of the wrecked train at Moorgate
He boarded the second carriage and found space standing up.
By 8.45, Newson’s train was at Old Street, the penultimate stop. In line with protocol, Newson checked the brakes.
The train was then just 500 yards away from Moorgate, but was not slowing down as it should. Instead, it was accelerating.
Paterson noted the ‘fear and astonishment’ on commuters’ faces.
Guard Harris did not have time to reach his own emergency brake, because he had moved to the rear of the train to find a newspaper.
Passengers on Moorgate’s platform 9 could see the train hurtling towards them. Newson was seen at the controls, sitting upright.
Witness Caroline Board said: ‘I kept staring at the driver because he didn’t move…it was like an Inter-City Express coming through.
‘I looked to see what on earth he would do and he didn’t do anything the whole time. He was just staring ahead.’
Firemen talk during the rescue operation at Moorgate following the disaster
Firemen stand on top of the wreckage of Train 272 following the crash
Tube guard Brian Fryer saw Newson and knew he was not going to stop.
Barry Coppock, who had been in the fourth carriage, was among the passengers who walked away unharmed.
He only realised the scale of the disaster when he read the newspaper that evening.
A temporary operating theatre was even opened on Moorgate’s Platform 11 to treat survivors.
Don Pye, the official photographer of the London Fire Brigate, who took pictures to record the rescue operation, would later recall how some of the dead were found still holding on to a ceiling strap.
‘In one doorway there was a row of businessmen, some still with their briefcases, standing as they would have been, waiting for the train to stop, but all dead,’ he said.
Overall, the rescue and recovery operation involved 16 doctors, 240 policemen, 80 ambulance workers and 1,324 firefighters.
An inquiry later found that there was nothing wrong with the train, track or signalling.
Firemen and other emergency responders seen on the platform at Moorgate after the crash
Rescue teams on the scene following the Moorgate disaster 50 years ago today
The cause therefore ‘lay entirely in the behaviour of motorman Newson during the final minute before the accident occurred’.
The driver had made no attempt to cover his face and died with his hands still on the controls.
This backed up the theory proposed by some that he had some kind of medical episode in the moments before the crash.
Journalist Laurence Marks had been sent to cover the disaster on the day.
He would discover the following day that his father, Bernard, was one of the passengers who died.
In 2010, Mr Marks wrote of his belief in the Daily Mail that Newson had deliberately crashed his train.
He told of the revelation of Guard Harris that Newson had overshot the platform just days before the crash.
Mr Marks wrote: ‘My heart beat fast. This seemed extraordinary. What on earth was the driver doing? What was he thinking?
Rescue teams at the scene of the Moorgate disaster
Ambulances, police and fire engines seen outside Moorgate station
‘That particular overshoot in an open tunnel was the distance of an entire carriage.
‘Dr Paul [the coronor] emphasised the significance of that overshoot – given how meticulous and pedantic Newson was.
‘He was a man who had gone by the rulebook (indeed, an open rulebook was found in the driver’s cab), which made it quite clear to me that this had been no accident.’
Although alcohol was found in Newson’s system, this could have been from the decomposition of his body, which was not freed from the wreckage of his cab until March 4.
But Mr Marks also quoted leading toxicologist Dr Anne Robinson, who had given the evidence at the inquest highlighting the presence of alcohol in Newson’s blood.
Dr Robinson told Mr Marks of her belief that Newson had ‘taken a drink of alcohol on the morning of the crash’ for ‘Dutch courage’.
‘Perhaps he knew what he was going to do – and wanted to steady his nerve,’ she added.
Others disagreed. Newson was not a drinker. So the reason why Newson did not stop may forever be a mystery.
