187 years on

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From The St Helens Reporter

A person died at Rainhill train station yesterday morning after being struck by a train. Just before 6.30am on Tuesday, August 1, British Transport Police received calls relating to a person hit by a train. The death is not being treated as suspicious. Paramedics attended and the casualty was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sadly, we still have deaths on the railway ... the first recorder being William Huskisson, while attending the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, on 15 September 1830, by Stevenson's Rocket which had won the Rainhill trials.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Yes.  William Huskisson MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post (a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London), depending on context) walked along the railway tracks to greet the Duke of Wellington when he (Huskisson) was struck by the other train.

Hence my current signature text.

And, as an aside, I share my birth date - 11 March - with William Huskisson. 

[TaplowGreen]

Yes.  William Huskisson MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post (a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London), depending on context) walked along the railway tracks to greet the Duke of Wellington when he (Huskisson) was struck by the other train.

Hence my current signature text.

And, as an aside, I share my birth date - 11 March - with William Huskisson. 

That must be a great line for breaking those awkward silences at parties!