The standard book on railway accidents, their causes, and steps taken to avoid them.

The fate of the Flying Scotsman in a blizzard at Abbots Ripton and the frantic but fruitless efforts of the railway staff to avert a second catastrophe, the sequence of trivial but fateful mistakes which ended in the terrible head-on collision at Norwich and Abermule, the disasters in the light Pennines at Hawes junction and Ais Gill, the structural defects of the first Tay bridge which led to its fall one wild December night in 1879, the packed runaway coaches of the Warren Point excursion rushing headlong down the Armagh incline, these are only a few of the dramatic and tragic events described in Red For Danger, which covers every major accident on a British railway. Nor is the story one of unrelieved tragedy. There is a strong comic element in some of the mishaps which Mr Rolt relates, while the episode of the runaway locomotive on the Somerset &|Dover line is sheer knockabout farce.

Because they have been based on official records and the evidence given by eyewitnesses, these stories from the railway past are brought most vividly to life. Although each story is complete in itself, so that the book may be dipped into or used as a work of reference, Red for Danger is no mere haphazard collection of sensational stories. For Mr Rolt reveals the painstaking thoroughness with which railway accidents are investigated, often fascinating pieces of real life detective work, so that the cause may be established and guarded against in the future