ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD

AMAZINGLY, two St Helens pubs bearing the title of Railway Hotel suffered the same fate, in being blasted out of existence. But the explosions which wrecked them came 79 years apart and under totally different circumstances.

The Railway Hotel blast of January 13, 1978 was the result of a gas leak. About 20 people escaped with minor injury.

But the Railway pub devastation of May 12, 1899 was caused by a chemical works explosion which killed five people and badly injured a further 10.

An avid follower of this old page has pointed me in the direction of Mary Presland's excellent book, 'St Helens: A Pictorial History' in revealing this most unhappy of coincidences.

The 1899 explosion was at the Kurtz chemical plant, between Warrington New Road and what is now Jackson Street. And a Railway Hotel was included in an "area of total ruin."

A spark, created when two empty kegs rolled into each other while being unloaded (the nail-secured hoops striking against each other) was put down as the cause. It ignited chlorate-saturated wood of a settling tank. Fire spread to roof timbers and the topmost of filled kegs in the adjacent store. This quickly triggered off a blast felt 15 miles away and heard as far afield as Northwich and Oldham.

The terror blast caused vitriol tanks of the nearby Hardshaw Brook Chemical Works to tear apart, their contents flowing into Warrington New Road. And across the road, a gas-holder, almost three-quarters full, ruptured, fuelling a flame almost 700ft high.

ONE of the darkest days in the history of St Helens.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.