Book reviews

Railway disasters


Subtitle	Cause and effect	Cover picture
Author	Stanley Hall
ISBN	1 85648 049 6
Publisher	Bookmart Ltd
Published in	1992
Language	English
RRP
Price paid	€17,50
Date	december 2008
Seller	De Slegte, Utrecht
# Pages	256
Size	22x30cm
State	Good, dust cover a little worn

Review

This book is a reprint of two published separately in the eighties. The book pays little attention to the personal suffering and drama of the accidents and shows no sensationalism that all too often characterizes accident books. If you look for drama, don't buy it. It offers a good, systematic insight in the causes of accidents and measures taken to prevent them. It also offers a horrific view of the role of the unions in lagging regulations, sacrificing many a passenger's life for the own good. To Dutch standards the English safety standards were very low and backward until the eighties.
The accidents in the book are chosen to be representative for their kind. The author does not attempt to give a full coverage of all accidents in the time span of the book (roughly 1920-1980). He just uses the incidents to evaluate the causes and the impact on the regulations and he sure makes a good job of it.