From the Darlington & Stockton Times of March 22, 1924: “There was a very alarming railway accident at Brompton station, near Northallerton, on Monday morning, resulting in injuries to 14 persons,” reported the D&S Times 100 years ago this week.

“The train concerned was the Leeds express which leaves Northallerton at 11.02. Three of the six coaches jumped the rails just before the train entered Brompton station, and the last coach partially mounted the platform and was dragged along in that position for about one hundred yards when it fell on its side.”

The train was derailed when travelling at 35mph by men who were working on points to the south of the station, and 20 passengers were in the last carriage which overturned.

“The line was covered with splintered wood and the platform with broken glass and bricks which bore evidence of great violence,” said the D&S. “It is wonderful that a number of people were not immediately killed.”

Darlington and Stockton Times: Brompton station before the last stopping trains were withdrawn at the end of 1964

The Red Cross ambulance car took four people to Rutson hospital, although none were seriously injured.

“Mr E Bishop of Doncaster added that when they got out of the train they saw an appalling scene of wreckage,” said the D&S. “A man came along with a cap in his hand, taking a collection for the engine driver, who, he said, had saved their lives, for if he had not had the presence of mind simply to shut off steam, instead of applying the brakes, the coaches would have telescoped.”

Two Bedale ladies, tobacconist Mrs Pearson and draper Mrs Outhwaite, were sent home in a taxi. A D&S reporter visited Mrs Outhwaite in her shop in the Market Place the following day, and she told how her elbow had smashed through a window when the carriage overturned and she had been hit by a portmanteau falling out of the rack onto her head.

Darlington and Stockton Times: The headline from the D&S Times of 100 years ago

However, she said, there was “a remarkable exhibition of English coolness” by the six passengers in her compartment.

The D&S said: “Our representative found Mrs Outhwaite full of radiant cheerfulness and not appearing the least affected by her terrible experience. Her chief sentiment seemed gratitude that they had escaped so well and no one was killed. It was miraculous, she said, that no one was killed outright.”