Dammit. Leaves on the bloody line. Trains stalled somewhere south of Berwick. It was six o’clock in the morning, chilly but full of a promise that the summer’s day would burst into life with a brilliant sun peeking over the South Downs.
What sort of bloody leaves fell onto the line at this time of the year? Late August and still the holiday season.
The day had started badly. The Council hadn’t collected the rubbish again, and it was too early to phone. Not that they ever answered.
Muttering and grumbling, the few passengers gathered on platform two, me among them, trudged over to number four to catch the early train to Brighton.
Leaves on the line. Oh god, can’t they think of a better excuse than that?
It was too early to get a newspaper, so the book in my briefcase was a decent substitute to help pass the time away as the train crawled past the Priory ruins, along the tracks parallel to the Lewes bypass and crept into Falmer station, as if somehow reluctant to add it as a stop.
My book was a compendium of short stories, and one caught my eye because Charles Dickens was the author.
‘The Signalman’ was an intriguing story of a nasty train crash, involving spooks and phantoms, moaning and groaning after locomotives had rammed into one another in a tunnel.
There was a footnote suggesting the story had been inspired by a train crash in which Dickens had been involved. A London to Folkestone boat train had toppled off a Kent viaduct in 1865 killing 10 and injuring forty. Dickens escaped harm because he was travelling in the first carriage.
The critic also said he had weaved into the tale a famous train crash in a place called Clayton Tunnel and the ghosts that still shrieked out loud there from the spirits of the dead.
My reading was interrupted as the train ground to a halt at Brighton’s platform 8.
Damn. There was a Gatwick Express just pulling out. It was late as for a time they couldn’t find the driver. Typical. But there were two other trains ready to depart within a few minutes of each other.
Both trains were filling rapidly and finding a seat at a table was the only option.
The clipped greying moustache of a man who must be a retired army officer glared back at me.
But his demeanour softened at the appearance of the book of short stories.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Dickens. Clayton Tunnel’. My look was intended to discourage conversation. But he persisted. He shuddered as he told me his blood froze every time he went through the tunnel, partly because the accident was caused by signalling problems and partly because of the screams of the 23 ghostly passengers who had died in the crash, which at that time was the worst rail crash in the country. Perhaps it was my wan smile, my failure to acknowledge his tale of terror robustly. But he exploded, ‘You know where I’m talking about don’t you?. Blank expression look on my face.
He was stunned that the name Clayton Tunnel had escaped my notice. ‘Just five miles from here, my boy, just five miles.’
The train lurched, Then glided effortlessly away from the platform. A nervousness crept over me.
And my ears were flapping when he continued his story.
Three trains had left this very station within 3 minutes of one another on August 25th 1861.
Steam driven, they had chugged away from Brighton terminus gathering speed as they went, just as we were now.
Ahead lay Clayton Tunnel, the longest on the line at nearly 2300 yards.
The signalman had got his flagging mixed up and mistakenly allowed the second train to enter the tunnel, then tried to stop it but allowed train number three to carry on regardless.
The result was the fast-moving express smashed into the rear of train number two which had stopped, crunching the last couple of carriages and buckling the train.
The tunnel was now very close to the train we were riding on and at the thought of the smash that had occurred all those years ago, my palms began to sweat, my knees knocked, and my teeth rattled.
No, they didn’t. Good lord I wasn’t that much of a scaredy-cat
My heart leapt when the train came to a screeching halt.
Too much ghostly talk from my companion and a pickled onion deciding suddenly to punish me for eating it too late last night.
They laid the dead out in a field he said. Another 172 were taken to hospital. It was a bad do.
But it’s the Dickens story that’s so interesting my companion continued. You see,’ the ghosts of the dead keep shrieking from inside the tunnel. All 27 of them.’
The train lurched forward picking up speed, suddenly enveloped by the dark as it roared into Clayton Tunnel.
How many times had I been through this tunnel without hearing a damn thing? I’d never known its name nor heard of this tragic event.
So why was I getting all riled up right now?
A rail screeched. My heart thumped. Was that a cry above the noise?
Oh, dear no. Don’t be so silly. But then the nerves kicked in as the train lurched to a halt. The drivers’ voice came over the intercom explaining the stoppage. But the tunnel interfered with the system, and all we heard was a crackling sound.
The retired officer cackled. ‘Well I’ll be dammed’ he said, his voice seemed to quiver.
‘What coincidence.’
‘Just like the crash of 1861’, he said.
Shut up. Please shut up.
But no, he kept going in lurid detail. He told how three early morning trains left Brighton within minutes of each other. Just as had occurred this morning. The first one passed through the tunnel unscathed only as the Gatwick Express had done ahead of us.
The signalman, one Harry Killick signalled to his counterpart at the entrance to the tunnel that the first train had cleared the arch.
But the signal malfunctioned, leaving the indicator showing that a train was still in the tunnel. The signalman saw the second train steaming towards him, smoke belching from its funnel, pistons pumping like mad.
He frantically waved a danger flag to halt the train, but it roared on by.
But the driver had seen the signal and slammed on his brakes. Fearing the train might catch the first train, the signalman asked if the tunnel was clear just as the first train cleared the exit. Killick mistook it for the second train and gave the all clear. So the final train roared into the brick tube and slammed headfirst into the stationary carriages ahead of him.
Just at that moment the lights temporarily disappeared on our train, and the passengers gave a collective gasp.
The sudden loss of light startled me, and wind passed from my bowels with a high rip.
The lights came back at that point, and each traveller looked around to indicate it was not they who had shattered the silence with broken wind.
But there was also a collective heightening of tension as the military man continued.
The original trains met in what was to prove the most massive crash ever experienced on the railway system.
Oh, my Lord. There it was. Screams of the victims. Ghosts. Horror. Where was I.?
Then a young lady was apologising for accidentally switching her mobile phone on.
I could barely hold my second fart as our train began to move forward again.
The rest of the journey to Victoria was uneasy, my limbs shaking, my palms sweating.
The completely composed ex-officer seemed unmoved by what had happened and carried on with his tale.
Apart from the screams of the dying echoing along the tunnel, it appeared that the ghostly howling pierced the tunnel’s roof and walkers over the Downs above frequently reported hearing squeals of agony.
The field where the bodies were laid out was also infected, and milkmaids had been scared out of their churns by ghostly apparitions and the wailing of the mangled bodies.
What’s more, said my moustachioed pal, the cottage over the entry end has several resident ghosts, that you can hear today.
I held up my hand. Enough. Some other time and especially some other place despite normality returning with the bustle of passengers heading off to their work.
But I tell you this, and I tell you no more if the line to Lewes is still blocked tonight, I’m taking the bus back. I want to make sure I arrive home in clean underpants.
Ah, he said, Dickens Clayton Tunnel
