divided). The Board of Trade got as far and as fast as it could by persuasion, but had no powers to enforce its views on often reluctant railway managements of existing lines. Inspectors disagreed as to whether the board should be given powers to require changes. Yolland's official report on an 1867 accident (in which eight people died at a junction unaltered since an 1862 fatal accident, despite an inspector having urged improvements) pressed for such powers: Tyler himself supported the view taken by successive governments: that to take such powers would remove the clarity of existing arrangements, where responsibility for passenger safety lay with the railway companies alone. The death of 80 people on a Sunday school outing in the Armagh rail disaster of 1889 brought a reversal of this policy on the three key issues: within two months of the accident Parliament had enacted the Regulation of Railways Act 1889, which authorised the Board of Trade to require the use of continuous automatic brakes on passenger railways, along with the block system of signalling and the interlocking of all points and signals. This is often taken as the beginning of the modern era in UK rail safety: "the old happy-go-lucky days of railway working" came to an end. Modern era The chief inspecting officer from 1916 to 1929 was Colonel John Wallace Pringle, responsible for investigating many accidents. It was during his tenure, in 1919, that the office became part of the newly created Ministry of Transport. The last chief inspecting officer with a Royal Engineers background, Major Rose, retired in 1988 and he was replaced by an appointee from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Since then, inspecting officers have been recruited from the HSE or as mid-career railway employees from the former British Rail. List of chief inspecting officers / HM Chief Inspectors of Railways Original twin functions of the HMRI The function of HMRI was to inspect and approve all new (or modified) railway works and to investigate railway accidents. Accident investigations were inquisitorial, generally not open to the public, and aimed to determine the causes behind the accident (both the immediate cause and contributory factors) and to make recommendations to avoid re-occurrence. Until the 1860s, in the first instance, accident reports were internal and only published in the accident returns made from time to time by the Board of Trade to Parliament. For fatal