e Arlsey railway accident is sufficiently accounted for by
ptain Tyler's report upon it. At 2.40 on December 23, the hey signalman had given the signal, "line clear" to Cad- 11, the next station up the line, so that any down train was
en free to pass the Cadwell station. At 3.16 the same signal- man learned that the down express had passed Hatfield on the way to Cadwell. But at 3.30 an up goods train reached Arlsey, and had to be shunted across the down line, in order to take up some more waggons. Seven minutes later the express -train ran into it, before the shunting had been properly finished. Yet no signal was sent back at 3.30 to Cadwell to say that the line had ceased to be clear, and what is worse, the rules of the Company did not require the signalman,— though the line is said to be worked on the block system,—to send any such signal. In fact, the operation of shunting was undertaken in the full knowledge that it must be effectually done within five -or six minutes, if a calamity was to be avoided, and as some of the waggons left the rails in the operation, it could not be com- pleted in time. Yet if on the arrival of the goods train the line had been at once blocked at Cadwell, the express, which did not leave Hitchin for Cadwell till 3.34, would have been stopped in ample time to prevent the collision. A clearer instance of grossly improper and even fool-hardy traffic-rules has never been brought out. It was the Great Northern Company's defec- tive rules—already revised—which were really responsible for the Christmas horror of this year.
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