I can't help thinking that anyone who can drive at full speed up a cul-de-sac and drive through a brick wall at the end is a prime candidate for the Darwin Award?

Sadly twelve people are in hospital.

I'm afraid I can't summon up any sympathy for the van driver; some people are too stupid to live.

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Tim Hall
www.kalyr.com/railways

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First anniversary of the Selby disaster, and another train is derailed by a road vehicle ending up on a railway track.

I can't help thinking that anyone who can drive at full speed up a cul-de-sac and drive through a brick wall at the end is a prime candidate for the Darwin Award?

Sadly twelve people are in hospital.

I'm afraid I can't summon up any sympathy for the van driver; some people are too stupid to live.

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At least in this case it seems the Highways Agency can't be blamed.

George Matthews

John

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... and on the BBC News website, the mother of one of the victims of the Selby rail crash is reported as saying that this latest accident shows that the government still hasn't done anything about railway safety. Go figure...

John

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This was a road problem. The wall the car went through wasn't fit for purpose.

George Matthews

Indeed - perhaps we should now get the HSE to examine all the country's walls to see if they're up to the job?

John

I'm not all that familiar with the type of barriers that separate motor vehicles and trains in the UK or elsewhere, but I truly wonder what can be done.

On many occasions here in New Jersey, cars end up on tracks. Once even on the venerable NEC in the town in which I live, a vehicle ended up on Track 4 and was stuck by a GG1. Most recently, a speeding, reckless and probably intoxicated motorist, driving at a high rate of speed, managed to jump the barrier at an overpass and ended up blocking the Morris & Essex commuter line below in Newark at the start of the morning rush hour. Two or three other incidents in the New Jersey-New York metropolitan area also come to mind, although the details escape me.

Such accidents are not all that rare. Fortunately, loss of life is rare. What then are the circumstances in the UK that make these kinds of situations preventable when they are not that much of problem elsewhere?

Perhaps it is not the barriers that need to be addressed, but the attitudes of motorists. In general, is there not strict enforcement of motor vehicle laws? Are licenses to drive not routinely revoked? Perhaps they should be.

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Robert J. Emery

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George, Tim and caronprom,

I'm not all that familiar with the type of barriers that separate motor vehicles and trains in the UK or elsewhere, but I truly wonder what can be done.

On many occasions here in New Jersey, cars end up on tracks. Once even on the venerable NEC in the town in which I live, a vehicle ended up on Track 4 and was stuck by a GG1. Most recently, a speeding, reckless and probably intoxicated motorist, driving at a high rate of speed, managed to jump the barrier at an overpass and ended up blocking the Morris & Essex commuter line below in Newark at the start of the morning rush hour. Two or three other incidents in the New Jersey-New York metropolitan area also come to mind, although the details escape me.

Such accidents are not all that rare. Fortunately, loss of life is rare. What then are the circumstances in the UK that make these kinds of situations preventable when they are not that much of problem elsewhere?

Perhaps it is not the barriers that need to be addressed, but the attitudes of motorists. In general, is there not strict enforcement of motor vehicle laws? Are licenses to drive not routinely revoked? Perhaps they should be.

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Robert J. Emery

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I think Railtrack and GNER should sue the Highways Agency for negligence.
George Matthews

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George, Tim and caronprom,

I'm not all that familiar with the type of barriers that separate motor vehicles and trains in the UK or elsewhere, but I truly wonder what can be done.

On many occasions here in New Jersey, cars end up on tracks. Once even on the venerable NEC in the town in which I live, a vehicle ended up on Track 4 and was stuck by a GG1. Most recently, a speeding, reckless and probably intoxicated motorist, driving at a high rate of speed, managed to jump the barrier at an overpass and ended up blocking the Morris & Essex commuter line below in Newark at the start of the morning rush hour. Two or three other incidents in the New Jersey-New York metropolitan area also come to mind, although the details escape me.

Such accidents are not all that rare. Fortunately, loss of life is rare. What then are the circumstances in the UK that make these kinds of situations preventable when they are not that much of problem elsewhere?

Perhaps it is not the barriers that need to be addressed, but the attitudes of motorists. In general, is there not strict enforcement of motor vehicle laws? Are licenses to drive not routinely revoked? Perhaps they should be.

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Robert J. Emery

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Tony

In general I would say that compliance with the law about crossings etc in Europe is much better than in North America - if only because the trains here tend to be much faster so the possibility of a nasty smash is rather obviously high, and perhaps this dissuades motorists from trying to push their luck. Mind you, we've probably all seen people acting the fool, and sometimes they do't get away with it.

As regards non-crossing accidents - as at Great Heck and more recently in Lincolnshire - they're actually not very common, though of course vehicles do leave the road from time to time for many reasons - and may end up in a river, a duckpond, or a harbour as well as on a railway line.

Usually there's little damage anyway, though obviously if a train happens to be coming things can get nasty very quickly indeed.

John

In urban areas, however, most road/rail crossings aren't at grade, and as such most barriers between road and tracks are considered more than adequate, especially for the typical automobile. That is not apparently the case in the UK, which is why I seek to understand what else may be involved or not involved.

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Robert J. Emery

Ah, I see.

Most of the (infrequent) incidents of the sort you describe have happened in rural areas where the road and rail routes happen either to cross one another via bridges or when they run side-by-side through a narrow valley or similar.

The Great Heck accident happened when a motorist who was - as has been described by another poster - in no condition to drive anyway managed to take his vehicle and its trailer off the motorway a little way short of the protective barrier.

The barriers at the bridge were up to standard, and apparently no-one had considered the possibility of anyone coming off the road at the point where he did and then continuing over a fairly large field until he came to rest on the railway line; his explanation was that he was frightened to brake in case the trailer over-ran his vehicle and caused a crash, but the jury apparently concluded that he was asleep most of the way down the slope. The question of barrier-length at bridges is now being reconsidered by the various relevant bodies.

In Lincolnshire, a local man who was apparently very familiar with the road layout drove right through a substantial brick wall before ending up on the track - the road had formerly continued over the line on a bridge, which had been demolished at least 30 years ago and the road layout changed to take it parallel to the line (which is in a cutting at that point) before crossing on another bridge a little further along.

Exactly how he made this fatal blunder no-one seems to be able to understand - suggestions of alcohol have been aired on one of the newsgroups but there seems to be no evidence for that whatever. We may never know what the first cause of the accident was.

John

I take it then that in both the Great Heck and Lincolnshire incidents, train passengers lost their lives or were at least seriously injured. Were both these places on curves such that the train's driver could not see the blocked track ahead? Were both trains of such lightweight design that an ordinary automobile would not have been simply pushed aside by the train?

If any New Jersey Transit commuter train were to strike a typical automobile on the tracks, even at top speed, there would be damage to the train, but it is unlikely anyone aboard the train would be seriously injured. As such, I am having difficulty picturing what occurred in the UK and why.

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Robert J. Emery

The vehicle driver, who was actually in his van and on his mobile to the emergency services at the instant the train arrived on the scene, was killed on the spot.

At Great Heck the circumstances were very different. Linespeed at this point is I think 125 mph, and the track is straight and well-suited for high-speed operation, but there were very unlucky factors which caused a number of fatalities.

The Landrover and trailer (with another vehicle being carried on the latter) had come to rest foul of gauge at the foot of the embankment. It was almost immediately struck by one of GNER's fast passenger trains which seems to have been running at linespeed or just below, and the vehicle was deflected from the line.

As the vehicle was in the lee of the motorway overbridge, it may well not have been very visible from the express cab, though I don't think that point was addressed in court - I suppose it is possible that the train was already braking at this point, though.

However, debris from the vehicle had apparently become caught under the train, causing at least one of the coach bogies (trucks to you!) to become derailed, though the train remained substantially in line and was being brought to a controlled emergency stop.

At this location some other tracks turn away from the main line, and the derailed wheels were caught by the pointwork, pulling the derailed coach further out of line, though not so far as would normally have caused serious problems - the couplers had apparently stood up to the strain and everything was still upright and more or less in line.

This is where the really bad luck happened. A heavy freight train was travelling in the opposite direction, and the locomotive of that train struck the side of the derailed coach; in that impact one of the men on the freight train's locomotive was killed, together with some of the passengers in the derailed coach.

Bearing in mind that the impact between the two trains was probably at a combined speed of around 175 mph or thereabouts, and that the passenger coach was struck in the side by a heavy freight train, the death toll was low - under double figures I think, though someone may correct that here.

So the Great Heck crash wasn't a simple 'train hits vehicle' incident, as you may have assumed, but rather a tragic combination of circumstances. Oddly and coincidentally, Gary Hart - the driver now in jail for the manslauhter of those killed - was also on his mobile to the emergency services at the time of the crash, and the dramatic tape of the call was heard at his trial, as he shouts 'There's a train coming', followed almost immediately by the sound of a massive impact. If nothing else had happened, however - in particular if there had been no train coming the other way - probably everyone would have walked away with nothing worse than a few bruises.

John

It says something about the structural strength of the coaches that only six passengers died out of the 180 or so on board, especially as some coaches rolled over several times or poled over endways.

Compare with the three-figure death toll at Escherde (sp?) a couple of years back, at a similar speed.

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Tim Hall
www.kalyr.com/railways

Are you writing of Lincolnshire or Great Heck?

Could you elaborate more on what a Driving Van Trailer is?

And can you explain what happened at Escherde and where that is?

Thanks.

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Robert J. Emery

A DVT is a Driving Van Trailer, basically a baggage car with a driving cab and streamlined front end - looks like a locomotive, but has no pantograph or traction equipment. At Great Heck it was leading, with the locomotive at the rear.

The Escherde crash happened in Germany, when an ICE trainset derailed at 125mph, and a derailed coach hit a bridge support and brought the bridge down on top of the train; the remaining coaches piled up against the bridge killing about 100 people.

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Tim Hall
www.kalyr.com/railways

PMFJI here, but I thought I'd add that in the UK express trains tend to be either comprised of fixed sets of what are effectively multiple-unit stock like the IC125s or the new Voyagers (that's an over-simplification I know!) or of push-pull operations with ordinary coaching stock with the locomotive generally at the 'down' (away from London) end and a DVT with the driver at the 'up' (London) end.

The system enables very fast turn-rounds at termini - no need to run round the train or put another loco on the back - but has sometimes run into criticism on the grounds that (i) the DVT isn't as heavy as a 'real' locomotive and thus may be more vulnerable to derailment in an accident and (ii) the train is in compression rather than tension, and may behave less safely in an accident.

Whether any of this this had any connection with the damage the train sustained in the Great Heck accident seems unlikely, and I can't say that I've ever felt unsafe when the train's being propelled rather than pulled, even at very high speed.

John

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Robert J. Emery

On Wednesday 28 February 2001, the 04h45 Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) passenger train left Newcastle on route to London Kings Cross. At approximately 06h12, while it was still dark, a Land Rover pulling a trailer loaded with a Renault car left the west bound carriageway of the M62 motorway at Great Heck, between junctions 34 and 35. The Land Rover and trailer continued along the steep road embankment and subsequently down a railway embankment and came to rest, fouling the Up mainline, on the south side of the M62 over-rail bridge at a point located at about 170 miles from London up the East Coast Main line (ECML).

John

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The leading vehicle of the train was a DVT (Driving Van Trailer), which carried no passengers. This vehicle was totally destroyed in the collision, killing the driver and the conductor. The other casualties were further back down the train, including the chef in the Restraunt car (4th in formation), which was seriously damaged by having another coach land on top of it.

It says something about the structural strength of the coaches that only six passengers died out of the 180 or so on board, especially as some coaches rolled over several times or poled over endways.

Compare with the three-figure death toll at Escherde (sp?) a couple of years back, at a similar speed.

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Impact speed somewhat resembled the "Colonial" crash in early 1996.

IMHO, the Great Heck incident did not give the passenger trian any chance to brake down; rather, the impact did still add 60-plus mph of the unit coal train and the approx. same of the intercity train limping over the crossties, but - acc. to the surviving second driver on cl.66 521 - did start to jackknife right in front of it; seems he could made it to the engineroom door behind ... (btw, could 66 521 be repaired ? At least, it made it through the bridge before leaving the permanent way).

Your statement holds that in case of no vehicle deviation and no opposite train, the incident would have remained off the headlines.

Seems as if there is a need for ensuring sufficient dynamic stability even in case of "sideswipe" incidents like these. There is little use of "ploughs" on leading trucks or vehicles in Europe, maybe a major deficiency hereabouts ?

Kind regards, CTW

CTW, DE-Goslar

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Impact speed somewhat resembled the "Colonial" crash in early 1996.

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Could you tell me more about the 1996 "Colonial" crash?

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Robert J. Emery

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Could you tell me more about the 1996 "Colonial" crash?

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Hm, better not. I think the case had been covered above, and after all, I have not been to the site myself.

Anyway, jackknifing and a substantial design of all involved vehicles did result in far less casualties, helped by the fact that energy could be spread more evenly by unconfined scattering and jackknifing of the consist.

Human component and relatedness to the thread: Drugs had impaired the Conrail driver's ability to operate (or, rather , stop it at a danger signal before entering the mainline) a consist of B-38 locos, which were then rear-ended by the "Colonial" at some 118 mph speed.

No details please. Sorry for late reply, seems I have problems logging in from time to time (I hate "cookies").

Regards, CTW

CTW, DE-Goslar

In New Jersey between Trenton and New Brunswick, Amtrak trains along the Northeast Corridor travel at 120 mph, higher elsewhere between Washington, DC, and Boston. Nothing along the NEC is at grade, but if one of those high speed trains were to hit an automobile on the tracks, the results could well be a duplicate of Great Heck. There are few freights these days along the NEC, but certainly enough other traffic for a second train to hit cars out of line if the timing was right.

I have a better understanding now of what occurred at both UK accident sites.

A somewhat similar accident involving two passenger trains in eastern Canada also comes to mind. IIRC, one high-speed train was on the wrong track due to a switch improperly set by a track crew. Taking the switch at such a high rate of speed caused cars to derail, which were then struck by a second oncoming train.

And there was the case of a Conrail locomotive jumping the switch and moving out on the NEC mainline just in front of an Amtrak express. The collision sent cars flying everywhere, many seriously injured and at least one death, the Amtrak engineer.

Very tragic.

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Robert J. Emery

I believe you are referring to the crash at Thamesville, Ontario in 1999. In fact the train derailed when it was diverted onto the wrong track because of switch improperly set by a track crew as you describe. However, what then happened was that the locomotive fell on its side and struck a line of freight cars that had been left on the adjacent siding. The only fatalities were the two engineers in the cab of the locomotive.

See http://www.tsb.gc.ca/ENG/reports/rail/1999/r99h0007/er99h0007.htm

...John Reay, forum staff

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I believe you are referring to the crash at Thamesville, Ontario in 1999. In fact the train derailed when it was diverted onto the wrong track because of switch improperly set by a track crew as you describe. However, what then happened was that the locomotive fell on its side and struck a line of freight cars that had been left on the adjacent siding. The only fatalities were the two engineers in the cab of the locomotive.

See http://www.tsb.gc.ca/ENG/reports/rail/1999/r99h0007/er99h0007.htm

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Thanks for the clarification. My remembrance is undoubtedly muddled at this point.

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Robert J. Emery