The Railway Murders: Significant Cases in British Railway History

The vast majority of Britain’s railways were built between 1825 and 1900. By the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century, over one-hundred different railway companies were operating in Britain on more than 22,000 miles of railway track. Although these new railways brought prosperity to the nation, and enabled goods and passengers to be speedily transported the length and breadth of the country for the first time, this remarkable feat of engineering brought with it some unwelcome side-effects, one of which was crime. A vast number of passengers travel on Britain’s railway network each day, and unfortunately, a considerable amount of crime does occur on our railways. The types of crime committed on Britain’s railways varies considerably from petty or minor crime, to more serious crimes. Most people would consider that the crimes of “murder” and “attempted murder” are amongst the most serious crimes committed in our country, irrespective of where these appalling acts take place. A substantial number of murders and attempted murders have taken place on the railway network of Britain, during its two-hundred years of operation, and details surrounding the vast majority of these cases are revealed in this book, some for the first time. The author has spent many months of research, mainly through old newspaper archives, in order to obtain establish and publish historical information about murders committed on Britain’s railways, many of which have been long forgotten, or lost in the annals of time.