and declined to identify himself with the Labour Party. He did not get official recognition, he did not ask for the co-operation of the A.S.L.E. & F., and did his best to make his members believe that it hardly counted. It is very significant that while Mr. Bell was busy with this propaganda, fifteen new branches were opened in one month. Looking back now, it seems unfortunate that many members of the A.S.R.S. were deliberately taught to regard. A.S.L.E. & F. members as "blacklegs," and yet such slander must have been generally disbelieved, for the Society grew apace on such statements. Forty-one new branches were opened in that year, and the membership increased by 3,503. The Federation scheme was never properly observed, and, said Mr. Fox, "It is not even understood by those who intend to have amalgamation." Mr. Geo. Moore, who had been elected President of the Society in January, accompanied Mr. Fox on the platform at Gloucester and several other centres in England and Scotland. The organisers, too, were busy, and the Society's firm attitude had many able advocates.
In the middle of the crisis, on October 15th, in the same week as the Euston Theatre mass meeting, came the Shrewsbury disaster, in which a London & North Western train from Crewe approached Shrewsbury station at a high rate of speed instead of stopping, passed the signals at danger, and entered a sharp curve. The unavoidable happened, practically the whole train leaving the road, and all the leading coaches being smashed. Eighteen persons, including driver and fireman, were killed, and a large number injured. It was much like Grantham over again, except that the train was not turned into a fatal branch line, as at Grantham.
The Shrewsbury accident formed the subject of a very important debate between Mr. Bromley and Mr. Thomas at Tredegar Hall, Newport, on Sunday, June 14th, 1908. Enginemen were intensely concerned about vacuum brake failures, and while they associated Shrewsbury with such a failure, the Board of Trade Inspector, Col. Yorke, suggested in his report the terrible possibility of Driver Martin, the driver of the ill-fated train, being asleep at his post.
