LNWR 1324 1920s Lichfield Trent Valley Low Level
London & North Western Railway Bowen Cooke 'Prince of Wales' class 4-6-0 No. 1324 'Falaba'. Built at Crewe in April 1916 and withdrawn in January 1946 as LMS No. 5683.
The Low Level Station at Lichfield Trent Valley is seen to good effect as 'Falaba' rushes through with an up express in the early 1920s. The passenger ship 'Falaba' had been underway from Liverpool to Sierra Leone in 1915. Off the Pembrokeshire coast she was sunk by a German submarine. The submarine gave warning for the 280 aboard to take to the lifeboats, but before they could do so a torpedo was fired, and the vessel sank almost immediately. 104 passengers and crew died. The incident caused outrage as it was the first unarmed passenger ship to be attacked in the first world war.
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