 Cooke's brakevan and the two coaches next to it were, in the words of the inspector "broken all to pieces", killing 14 passengers and badly injuring 50 more.The accident was investigated by Captain Tyler of the Railway Inspectorate; there was also a coroner's inquest on those who had died in the crash.Tyler showed by experiment that when a string of carriages matching the runaway train section was allowed to run back down the incline for quarter of a mile before the brake was applied, application of the brake then brought the carriages to rest well before the site of the collision.