The mail should then have been brought Bringing to the down platform through a passageway ( normally closed by a gate kept locked from the inside ) between the station yard and the platform .

Whilst the platform itself sloped towards the railway tracks quite noticeably , the passageway did not .

The subsequent Board of Trade accident investigation showed that the down platform sloped unnecessarily steeply ( 1 in 24 ) towards the track , and that whilst the passageway was not so fiercely graded it still sloped at about 1 in 80 to the track .