Rail Safety

But for the Clapham Junction collision, 1988, in terms of passengers killed or injured in train accidents, would have been one of the best on record. This is revealed in the Report on the Safety Record of the Railways in Great Britain During 1988 by the Chief Inspecting Officer of Railways, Mr R.Seymour.

In terms of total train accidents, it was not such a good year, with an increase from 1, 165 in 1987 to 1, 330 in 1988. Significant accidents, that is derailments and collisions actually or potentially the most dangerous to passengers, rose by 26, despite the increases in modern signaling. There were 52 bufferstop collisions, meaning that braking of modern stock is less predictable, or that drivers are inadequately trained.

The only train accident apart from Clapham involving on-train fatalities occurred on 11 November, when a driver was killed as his Diesel Multiple-Unit was derailed and struck a bridge abutment.

A collision at King Edward Bridge, Newcastle, involved a disputed signal aspect, with both a passenger and the driver of a northbound High-Speed Train claiming a signal was showing a proceed aspect, with the result that the train collided with a southbound HST correctly signaled across its path. No fault was found with the signaling and the claimed aspect could not be reproduced; the railway’s own internal inquiry concluded that the driver and passenger were mistaken and that the driver had passed the relevant signal at danger. The vehicles were rerailed the next day.

Another accident involving a high-speed train at Gasworks Tunnel was probably the most unusual of the year. It occurred when people working on land above the tunnel uncovered a capped ventilator shaft. They attempted to fill the shaft with rubble bulldozed into the hole. Nobody had thought to tell them that the bottom of the shaft was open to the tunnel, and that the rubble was being deposited on the main line below, where it was struck by the high-speed train.

Of the 120 station and lineside fires reported in the year, 37 were started deliberately. Most of the fire incidents, though, were on older diesel locomotives or multiple-units where fires were due to ‘technical causes’ rising with the age of first-generation DMUs.

While Mr Seymour has welcomed the introduction of train-crew-operated sliding doors on newer stock, with the potential to reduce accidents arising from open doors and leaning out of the window, concern has been expressed about the loss of free passenger egress in the event of fire on the new types of stock.

Some of the technical failures of rolling stock reported during the year would have had serious consequences. On 6 August, as a train left Lancaster a staff member working alongside the line saw something hanging from a coach and the train was stopped. A swing link on the bogie had fractured from corrosion and allowed the spring plank to drop on to the running rail.

Inexperience and insufficient training have been a potent cause of accidents, and the ability to retain staff so that they become experienced depends on pay and conditions.