BAYSWATER - 1869

On Oct. 1, 1869, an explosion killed seven people in a house in Bayswater. The owner of the house, at 69, Moscow Road - a Mr. Titheradge - was a confectioner who also sold fireworks, according to the 1870 edition of the Annual Register, published by Longmans.

The book said:

``At five minutes to three o'clock in the morning the constable who took this road as part of a very long beat happened to be passing near the house, when he heard a noise resembling fireworks, and was startled immediately afterwards by an explosion which blew the front of the shop out, shutters and all. He at once sprang his rattle, and used his best exertions to rouse the people in the place.

``But egress by the front was impossible almost immediately, as the house must have been in flames instantaneously in the front, and the explosion, to all appearances, went through the two windows over the shop. Of course all who slept in that apartment must have been killed at once. A second policeman came at the alarm of the rattle, and he ran for the engine, which came in fifteen minutes after the alarm.''

HARROW AND WEALDSTONE - 1952

At 8:19 a.m. on Oct. 8, 1952, disaster struck at the Harrow and Wealdstone rail station in northwest London.

An express train crashed into the rear of a local making a scheduled stop. Seconds later, a third train traveling in the opposite direction plowed into the wreckage.  In all, 122 people died.

Rescuers used acetylene torches to reach people entwined in the wreckage.

The Ministry of Transport concluded the express train passed a caution and two danger signals heading into the station.

"Some of the victims were on the platform as carriages full of commuters were hurled onto them," the BBC reported that day. "Others were killed on a footbridge over the track that was punctured by a pile of coaches."