Moorgate Crash (Flickr set)

I do indeed remember "Charlie". Always popped up somewhere you never expected him to - never lost for something to say, especially if he found an extended interval in your service (as a Traffic Controller) and that's despite loads of cancellations because of no guards in those days!

However, the only time I found him lost for words was when, as Head Controller, I rang him up early one Sunday morning (it wasn't a social call - it was my job!!) to tell him of the Bakerloo train that had run away from Queen's Park, which finished up south of Regent's Park.

I think there are details of this incident on another thread somewhere.

It was a shock to me still at school, but hoping for employment by LT (bus or rail), which I'd never had got under an alleged "competence-based" interview.

I've heard that from only one other person previously - the AET at High Barnet when it happened. It was never recorded in the 'Collisions with buffers and other fixed objects' list in Rails Through The Clay - no doubt because Moorgate overshadowed it?

Coming home from school that day, my mum told me that there was a bad accident at Moorgate. My first thought that it was a Met. But when I got home and turned the telly on, found out that it was a Northern City train.

Gordon Hafter got an OBE, I think.

What ever happened to the guard that fateful day

If I recall correctly the guard left LT shortly afterwards. I seem to remember he was sort of put into the 'fall guy' position. Was he walking through the train collecting papers instead of being on his gangway? Why didn't he pull the train down? Did he open the rear DBVIC for some unexplained reason, thus reducing the effect of the Westinghouse Brake? All these stories circulated at the time. It didn't help that at that time he sported the then fashionable look for young men - long hair, no tie, LT uniform dust jacket worn with 'civie' flared trousers. No doubt there were hundreds of LT guards (and bus conductors) who dressed similarly in the mid-70s but it didn't allow him to appear either professional or a credible witness. The whole Moorgate crash subject is awash with conspiracy theories nowadays and I doubt there will ever be an explanation which satisfies everyone. However I do feel it's long enough in the past to be discussed here as a historical event without being deemed either 'insensitive' or 'bad taste' (as some aspects of 7/7 can be).

The guard was apparently not paying attention on the approach to Moorgate, and was not at his position. Even if he had been, there is still no guarantee that he would have pulled the handle.

I think it took a certain amount of "b*alls" for a junior Guard to "pull down" an experienced Motorman in those days, you tended to defer to their judgement. By the time the train was careering over the points and entering the station at speed - the first time anyone would had realised something was wrong - it would surely have been too late to avert disaster.

Having heard of drivers going through stations without stopping and being oblivious to the fact when tired (e.g. finishing nights) I am sure that's what happened here. Sooner of later it was going to occur at a dead-end tunnel terminus, just as if CSDE had not been fitted, eventually someone would have opened the doors on the wrong side at West Ham, people would fall out, and just as a c2c train passed on the Down Road. Eventually the 'worst-case' scenario will happen unless technology is put in to prevent it.

I agree with these comments, I once nearly opened the doors the wrong side at Golders Green, but thankfully it was adverted, however surely the guard at moorgate had he had been stationed at his position junior to the motorman or not would have reacted as best he could and pulled him down, the truth of it he wasnt he was searching for papers nodoubt. I dont think it was suicide, it takes a brave person to do that, just think you can see the headwall coming and you do nothing. Perhaps it was tiredness, we will never know, but like you say the clatter of the points would wake anyone up. Why didnt any of the passengers pull the handel as well, so many what ifs and whys.

The name still gets mentioned even now.....even though I started quite recently (2006) I have heard people talk about him.....did he have a brother on the combine as well? I'm certain I've heard someone use 'The Cope Brothers' before.........

And of course, there is the inexplicable fact that he didn't raise his hands to cover his face. To me, this is the thing that tells me it wasn't suicide. It's such an instinctive reaction, and even if he had closed his eyes, he would have known what was coming, and still raised his hands.

Qualified, safe or not, if the guard was at his position, the rattle and speed going over the points would Im sure relate all is not well, wouldnt it have been better to pull the brake downl

I remember having a conversation with a bloke who took trainee drivers out on the Northern Line.This would have been in mid-1979 and obviously the Moorgate crash would have been fresh in his mind.We talked about possible explanations as to why it happened,and he told me that once he had been supervising one particular motorman,and had asked him to slow on approach to a station (Tooting Broadway if I remember correctly) and met with no reesponse,he repeated the request with urgency,and looked at the driver who stood there like a statue.The supervisor took the controls and brought the train to a halt,the cab beyond the station in the tunnel,and said to the driver "What the **** was that about" and the driver looked completely shocked and had no recollection af the approach to the station.
The supervisor likened it to how some people react to strobe lights,as a form of epilepsy,and suggested that perhaps the Moorgate crash could have been caused by a similar occurrence.