Driver Eric Goode

Moored tonight at Little Haywood, I took a walk around the village ending up in the adjacent settlement of Colwich. Following a road that looked as if it might lead to the now closed railway station I came across a trackside memorial to Driver Eric Goode.

Nearly twenty-five years ago, on 5th September 1986, Driver Goode lost his life in a terrible accident at Colwich Junction. A London to Manchester train overshot a red signal and came to a stop fouling the junction. Seconds later it was hit head-on by a Liverpool to London express, hauled by locomotive "City of Milton Keynes" driven by Driver Goode and travelling at 100mph.
Driver Goode was killed instantly, but it is a testament to the quality of design and construction of railway carriages of the period that his was the only death, although 75 people were injured.
Watching today's express trains hurtle past the same spot and and knowing that Driver Goode would have had no time to react, just to sit in his cab and await his certain death was a very eerie feeling indeed.
 I think I need a pint!