A boy sits on a train rail holding his head in his hands, struggling to take in the devastating scenes around him.
This emotional scene was captured by a Watford Observer photographer 35 years ago this month but, thankfully, the boy and the ‘casualties’ wrapped in blankets behind him were only acting.
The pictures on this page were captured at a mock train crash in October 1989 where the emergency services and rail workers were joined by volunteers for an exercise that was made to look as realistic as possible.
- How Watford looked from a helicopter in the late eighties
- The changing face of Watford at the end of the eighties
The images show the ‘accident’ took place in the Watford tunnel with firemen using ladders to scale the steep embankment to help ‘casualties’ get to safety.
Another picture shows ‘reporters’ interviewing a man who, presumably, was playing the part of someone who was on the train and appears to have escaped without serious injury, or was involved in what had happened in some other way.
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