Skip to main content

Being a Very Brief Reflection on Railway Terrorism in 1973

 

I spent an interesting few hours today doing some research and, as always, I was distracted by other issues.  I was reading the Annual Report of the Chief Constable of British Transport Police for 1973 and what caught my eye was the section on terrorism.  From time to time I get the impression that some people think that terrorism was invented only a few years ago.  The lethal terrorist campaigns of earlier decades are often forgotten.

In 1973 the RAILWAY in Great Britain saw:

5                           IEDs explode

5                           IEDs defused

1,314                   Telephone Bomb Threats

715                      Suspect Packages

38                        Suspect Cars

78                        Suspect Letters

And 22 Other incidents

That’s a total of 2,175 incidents and, as the Chief Constable pointed out, a major call on the resources of the force.

Nobody was killed by terrorists on the railway in 1973, although fatalities did occur elsewhere in the UK.  It was for example the year of the Old Bailey bombing.

The incidents included:

1.       An explosion at Victoria Station which injured 3 officers and 4 members of the public

2.       Explosions at King’s Cross and Euston on the same day – one device was thrown and the other ‘placed’,  injuring between 14 and 21 people.  The ‘warning’ call came five minutes before the first device was detonated.

3.       An explosion at Sloane Square Station

4.       Bombs placed on separate days at Baker Street Station

5.       An incendiary device that ignited at Birmingham New Station.

 

Terrorism is a permanent backdrop to railway operations. Within a few years of opening the London Underground was being attacked.  The threat is never far away, and this is true the world over. 

Planners and responders know that there is no room for complacency however ‘quiet’ it may seem.  Most attacks occur without intelligence predicting them and happen without warning.  The need for vigilance is perpetual, but thoroughly routine.   Vigilance need not describe an approach dominated by fear or a semi panic created by contemporary events.  The best sort of vigilance is an exercise in resigned common sense.

 

 

Phil Trendall

British Transport Police, 1974. Annual Report of the Chief Constable for the Year 1973. London: British Railways Board, p.34.

The Report was accessed courtesy of the British Transport Police History Group 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Give me a firm place to stand.........

  Is policing better today than it was 50 years ago?   Is this even a valid question?   My answer to both is   straightforward: ‘I don’t know’.   I suspect that most things are better and some things have declined but generally it is the sort of question that can take up a lot of time and enough hot air to power a dirigible.   I really DON’T want to start a debate on this because what concerns me most is my own shifting perspective.   As a grumpy git I find the sight of scruffy police officers looking bored and staring at their telephones really annoying.   I don’t understand why wearing a traditional helmet is so difficult and I don’t like the rather lightweight approach to discipline.   On the other hand my professional dealings with police officers show me that modern officers are bright, caring, thoughtful and determined to do the right thing.   As events demonstrate there is no shortage of brave people in today’s service. The horrors of racism and misogyny still haunt the service
Post a Comment
Read more

Law and History 2: JUST THE SAME AS OTHER FORCES?

  Reading through this before posting makes me fear that it is not historical enough for this blog and trespasses into contemporary issues.   So be it.   But I do feel it necessary to remind readers that this blog does NOT represent the view of the BTPHG.   These ramblings are mine alone. It is rarely accurate to say that history repeats itself, but it is true that somethings that we think are settled in the past return to challenge us again. When I was a serving police officer in BTP I saw a steady evolution in the status of the force.   The achievements of officers, particularly in facing the ‘decade of disasters’ (1980s) and the acknowledged expertise of BTP in dealing with certain classes of activity (terrorism, theft person, theft of goods in transit, major incident response, football disorder etc) all led to an increasing recognition that BTP was an equal member of the police family.   In concrete terms this had been marked by the recommendation of the Wright Committee into the
1 comment
Read more

Police Review & Parade Gossip 1902/3

  I have, at long last, returned to my project of searching early editions of Police Review & Parade Gossip for items relating to the Rail, Dock and Canal (RDC) Policing.   I have run into a couple of years where the index (which was compiled at the end of end calendar year) is missing which means I have had no choice but to go through every page of every edition.   Police Review was a weekly publication that described itself as ‘The Organ of the British Constabulary’.   It provides a valuable insight into the issues that concerned police officers and the public. So, what were the big questions of the early Edwardian period?   Well, questions of law make a frequent appearance together with operational demands.   The delay to the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902 (he was ill) led to a lot of operational angst.   Even today mutual aid brings challenges but imagine what it was like when there were 243 forces (i) covering England, Scotland and Wales.   Assaults on officers were at a v
Post a Comment
Read more