This lists significant accidents involving railway infrastructure or rolling stock, including crashes, fires and incidents of crew being overcome by locomotive emissions. Indirect railway-related incidents such as the King's Cross fire of 1987 or the 7 July 2005 London bombings are not included.
Worst accidents The worst accident was the Quintinshill rail disaster in Scotland in 1915 with 226 dead and 246 injured. The second worst, and the worst in England's peacetime history, was the 1952 Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash, which killed 112 people and injured 340. The death toll from the 1957 Lewisham rail crash was 90; for the 1889 Armagh rail disaster (the worst in Northern Ireland) it was 80; and for the 1879 Tay Bridge disaster it was 75. The worst rail accident in Wales was the 1868 Abergele rail disaster, with 33 dead.
The accident on the London Underground with the highest loss of life was the Moorgate tube crash which occurred on the Northern City Line in 1975 (which was at the time part of the London Underground Network), in which 43 died.
Mainline rail Before 1830 Date Killed Injured TypeDetails16 boiler explosion1815 Philadelphia train accident, a boiler explosion of "Brunton's Mechanical Traveller" on a plateway killed 16 people, mainly sightseers.
1830–1922: Pre-grouping