The runaway train of Petworth and other tales

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Older readers may recall the radio programme Childrens’ Favourites and the song ‘The Runaway Train went down the hill and she blew’.

Yet how many people know that such an incident actually happened in West Sussex.

At the time, the railway network was in its infancy and, in 1857, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway extended its line from Horsham to Petworth, opening for passengers on October 10, 1859.

Petworth Station was then a terminus, as the line had yet to be built to Midhurst. In its own small engine shed there was one locomotive, a Sharp Brothers single-wheeler No 79 built in 1847.

Twelve days after the opening in the early hours of the morning, the fireman as usual lit the fire in the boiler of No 79 to get up steam ready for the day’s work.

As locomotives were the showpieces of the railways, they were always kept immaculately clean and so, at about 5am while steam was being raised, a cleaner set about his task.

As the cleaner needed the engine to be moved so he could gain access to areas which had been out of his reach, he went in search of the fireman who was in the engine men’s lobby nearby.

On the cleaner’s return to the shed, he heard the exhaust of an engine so returned to the lobby to inform the fireman his help was no longer needed as the arriving engine would help move No 79.

Imagine their sheer bewilderment when they both returned to the shed to find No 79 had vanished.

They ran down the yard and glimpsed the sight of steam in the distance.

A mad dash then ensued which nearly succeeded in capturing the runaway with the cleaner grasping hold of the buffer – but at the critical moment he fell to the ground exhausted, while the older fireman was some distance behind.