 Cooke had worked for the company as a goods guard for eight years, and had acted as a guard on excursion trains over several summers.It cannot for a moment be supposed that a man habitually trustworthy should on this occasion only have so far forgotten himself as to invite the passengers into his van, to smoke and drink with them, to employ them at his brake handle, and four times to fracture the couplings in one day by his carelessness; and if the company or their officers were not aware of his character previously, then it can only be said that they ought to have been aware of it, and that they ought to have used an amount of circumspection that would have prevented them from appointing a careless man, as he proves clearly to have been, to such important duties 

For a train of 28 carriages, two brake vans were inadequate, more than 28 carriages were needed to hold a thousand pleasure-seeking excursionists without over-crowding, and to maintain good order in a thousand pleasure-seeking excursionists more was needed than two guards (who had their normal duties to perform).The accident would not have been avoided or mitigated by specifying a longer interval between trains, or by a greater use of the telegraph.