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But we weren't just discussing a railway breakdown were we? I suggest that all forms of transport have required legislation and have only become safer with more knowledge and better technology...and that railways are no different....hence the details of shipping casualties. You seemed to suggest that early railways were lacking in safety because of a the profit motive, and this may well have been true in the very early days ( although stats show otherwise) but at the time of this crash that was far from the truth...as my own Grandfather, who drove for the GCR ,would have attested. He always maintained railways were the safest mode of travel and drivers regularly had physical examinations to ensure their fitness to drive as well as tests...all of which was overseen by HM Inspector of Railways. Not all technical problems with commercial aviation result in crashes either or, as in the amazing case of an Air Transat flight , running out of fuel because of human error, midway across the Atlantic, did! Back to the Woodhouse crash I think the loco was one of Parker's class 2 ,of which 24 were constructed, and the immigrant train was an especially interesting part of social history .Eastern Europeans( many being Jews escaping pogroms) emigrating to the USA, having crossed western Europe, caught railway steamers to the Humber ports and thence trains to take them across to Liverpool and onward to America.

I take your point but feel you are rather exaggerating, bearing in mind the rapid growth of railways in the UK ( and throughout the world) You state that it took "a great deal of legislation to get the Railway Companies to introduce safety measures" . Yet, the first Act, as I have already stated, was in 1840 and an Inspectorate established in the same year... According to records some 4 serious accidents ,involving loss of life or serious maiming ,occurred in the UK in the ten year period following the death of Huskisson . Accidents, mainly involving human error or the failure of components,occurred throughout the world and lessons were learned ( how I hate that phrase) You mention safety at sea but, surely, the nearest parallel is civil aviation which in 100 years has grown from the dangerous pastime of "idiots" to the safest mode of travel. Was this entirely by dint of legislation or was it by learning from mistakes; from improving materials and research? I think the CAA would say it was all as, indeed, is the case with railways. In my time in the steel industry I can remember when drinking beer at work was especially encouraged for those doing hot manual work such as furnaceman and , indeed,Brown Bayley Steels had a pub entrance built within its walls ...which had permission to open outside the then licensing hours In the EU, as late as the 1980's, German steel manufacturers, Zollern Stahl und Metal, had beer dispensers in their factories selling 330ml bottles for a few pfennigs. How times change...but we are a history forum and instead of holding our hands up in shock horror we should try and understand...Without understanding we learn little.