XBergMann
Fear not, I mean no harm to your planet
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2009
- Messages
- 482
Quite by coincidence, browsing the Big Bangs thread, I came across a reference to the Soham train explosion. The coincidence being that it was the 75th anniversary yesterday. It's not exactly fair to describe the four main protagonists' very courageous deeds as unsung, at least locally, but I'd never previously heard of it. In a nutshell, one wagon on a bomb train caught fire, the driver noticed, and his fireman uncoupled the burning wagon from the rest of the train. They drove the burning wagon away, thus preventing a major catastrophe: the train had 44 wagons in total... The engine driver's survival is extraordinary: he was at the epicentre as five tons of high explosive bombs went off. Anyway, it's a good save by the wayback machine - that page is well worth ten minutes of your time, I found it full of fascinating detail.
Many thanks for that I went to school at Soham Village College and, although I had heard of the incident I didn't know the details