Just after 5pm on Wednesday 8th December 1954, passengers waiting for a train home at Gunnersbury station heard a sudden roar of wind. Within seconds, the platform roof had collapsed, burying 15 people beneath the wreckage.
A tornado was tearing through west London.
The day after the night before (c) Pathe News
The storm originated in an Atlantic depression that developed a couple of days earlier and slowly approached Britain via Bristol, accompanied by thunderstorms. At 4:22pm, a thunderstorm was detected approaching London. By 5:04pm, Met Office radar showed a five-mile-wide storm cell over south London.
The tornado began near the River Thames in Gunnersbury, damaging homes as it moved north towards the railway. At the Britvic works, just south of the station, it brought down a ceiling, injuring five women and a man. All six were taken to hospital.
Then it struck Gunnersbury station.
The poles supporting the platform shelter gave way, bringing its corrugated steel roof down onto the waiting passengers. Around 200 feet of station wall also collapsed, injuring someone walking past outside, while part of a staircase fell in. Others were hurt by flying debris.
It almost could have been worse as a northbound train had just left the platform.
Station workers rushed to free the 15 passengers trapped beneath the shelter, while wreckage blocked both sides of the railway track. Eight passengers were injured, six of whom were taken to hospital.
Among them was Elizabeth Bell, who pushed her son beneath her and shielded him from the falling debris. Newspaper accounts differed over her injuries as two described them as serious, while another reported minor cuts.
Mr Harry Wareham told the Daily Express that the “rush of wind sounded like two trains coming out of a tunnel”
“There was a flash of lightning. Then another flash as the cables were hit. Glass flew, and we all held our heads. It was all over in a few seconds. Then came the ambulances. We were still dazed”
The damage severed the railway’s signals and telephone connections. With debris also blocking the tracks, train services came to a halt.
The tornado, meanwhile, continued north towards South Acton, bringing down an 80-foot chimney and reaching its greatest intensity around Bollo Lane, home to many London Transport depots. It continued towards Willesden before dissipating near Southgate. In its wake were around 800 damaged homes, battered factories and warehouses, a wrecked tube station and more than 30 injured people.
Remarkably, nobody was killed.
And the passengers now stranded outside Gunnersbury station?
Passing motorists would stop and offer lifts in their cars to help them get at least some of the way home.
The station in 1955 with a temporary roof repair – photo by Ben Brooksbank
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