Main Line Steam - Possible ramifications of the WCRC suspension

Is it ? A passenger train carrying 500 passengers is stationary straddling a major junction whilst an HST with another 500 passengers approaches at 70 mph pathed to cross the junction. Taking Clapham as a guide with its 35 dead + 100 seriously injured to varying degrees the potential impact of an HST driving into the side of a train at high speed would be at least equivalent given that (a) the coach taking the brunt of the impact would be forced off the track for some distance (b) the coaches either side would be torn from the consist and equally scattered and (c) the sudden decceleration of the HST trainset and their subsequent side-swapping into the stationery train would combine to create a maelstrom of wreckage. I don't think Mr Harris is exaggerating at the potential with 1000 passengers involved although many may question the final figure of deaths and injuries from a scenario that - fortunately - didn't arise.

Perhaps, however, it may be better to wait for the RAIB, NR and ORR reports to be published with actual figures before commenting / criticising projections made by those who have previous experience of reporting accidents and their consequences. The air surrounding the SPAD is already filled with reports of possible criminal prosecutions and care needs to be taken both on what is said on such as forums and what is reported in the various portions of the media in order not to cross the line into a legal minefield.

 

I am not sure how we turned a SPAD to the worse rail crash since 1915 when more than 200 soldiers burned to death in overcrowded wooden coaches lit by gas tanks under the carriages!

 

Good luck?

Good luck? Had the HST been running a minute late there could well have been a catastrophe.

Anyone who seeks to trivialise this matter needs their head examining.

 

Tom

When Steam Dreams started the plan was to run regular services to Canterbury and Salisbury 3 hours out 3 - 4 hours at the destination and 3 hours back. They found that the majority of passengers did not want to keep returning to the same places and they started offering new destinations further away. Bath and York being the most popular. Dining can make up half the fare paying coaches for some desitnations due to the high demand.I have been on trains where 5 1/2 coaches have been dining and others when it is only 2 or 3. In recent years trips in the South East have become longer due to the network getting busier and local pickups becoming more popular. Cross London trips with local pickups have become popular because some people are not prepared to come into London and/ or due to the cost of service trains into London. These trips in particular are usually very long days.

Paul

 

There was no chance of hundreds of people dying in that crash. If you had bothered to make an even cursory look at multi death railway accidents you would see there were lots of external contributory factors - fire mostly. There were no risks of explosion or fire in this accident, and the coaching stock used was that specifically used ( and proven) to maintain safety integrity in the event of high speed mulit collisions.

So before you accuse me of "trivialising" something I suggest you look at a few historical facts. If you had, you too would have reached the sensible conclusion that "100s of deaths" from an accident that didn't happen was sensationalist at best.

 

Thanks Paul. It would be interesting to know what the typical demographic of rail tour passengers is: certainly long days aren't very family-friendly, but maybe the fact that many trips also run midweek is a clue to a target market that is predominantly retired?

On the "regular itinerary" trips I've been on abroad (TranzAlpine and Taieri Gorge in New Zealand; and the Kuranda Railway in Australia) I would say the bulk of passengers were foreign tourists, and probably not especially price-sensitive. Indeed, on the Taieri Gorge, they run regular trips to meet incoming cruise liners at Dunedin as a day trip ashore. I wonder if there is a market for regular Southampton to, say, Salisbury or Bath / Bristol by steam to connect with incoming cruises? Possible I think to turn at each end and Eastleigh would provide a possible base to stable / maintain the loco and stock between trips.

Tom

 

Unless they are aimed at heritage railways e.g. 82045

 

I don't see anyone seeking to trivialise the matter, it's frighteningly clear that without the railway gods looking down something very unpleasant could have occurred.

However it is equally unhelpful for a journalist who has obviously been approached by the mainstream press to provide informed comment as a specialist in the field to make such a strong statement which will become perpetuated in other media, note unlike the comments on here he did not use words such as 'potential' he stated it as fact.

Anyway it's a peripheral issue which like so much regarding the incident and aftermath results in conjecture so probably not worth discussing. I just wish journalists would not seek to sensationalise everything.

Incidentally Quintinshill will be 100 years ago next month, have just read a book regarding it - a truly horrific accident.

 

I've just done a quick count using the uksteam tours page for last year...

In the WHOLE YEAR, DBS operated 35 steam-hauled trains.

In ONE WEEK at the end of August, WCRC were scheduled to operate 25 steam tours (although some were cancelled or diesel hauled due to the NR steam ban).

That rather puts things in perspective when people are suggesting that DBS would be able to fill the gap in, God forbid, Wesr Coast

 

???????????????

Are you 100% sure?.......... I'm not.

An HST ploughing through a stationary train doesn't bear thinking about.

If the coach that took the impact was a TSO. that's "game over" for an awful lot of unfortunate people, never mind the driver of the HST.............. and depending on where the coach was in the consist, you then have the likely scenario of the steam loco being not just derailed, but on its side, creating a potential "bomb"................ consequences of which could be horrific......... also, you are talking about rolling stock of both trains that doesn't meet modern day "standards"........ you will get concerteenering as well as side swipe, jackknifing et al. it would not be a pretty sight - it would be a bigger mess than a head on....... the "100's" dead might not be immediate, but would be as a consequence of being thrown about like rags dolls................ you are forgetting, that unlike cars - railway coaches don't have seat belts as mandatory - and if the HST was full to standing, then there's your "100's" dead without recourse to "crash resistant" coaching stock........... as an avid LFC fan, and it pains me to say this, the closest comparison I can give is Hillsborough...... and if that doesn't get through to you then nothing will - and you castigate the likes of members on here & a reporter from a jorno as being wrong, sorry, but you are the one missing the bigger picture..........

 

So an HST carrying several hundred gallons of diesel fuel striking a steam locomotive at speed carries with it no possibility whatever of a fire?

"hundreds dead" is probably stretching a point, but I think that a collision (if it had occurred) could very well have been on the scale of Southall.

 

One death would have been one death too many. Anyway, everyone knows that if this HST travelling at over 100mph towards London collided with a train standing in its way on the junction, loss of life would potentially have been on a massive scale although not hundreds. That is why the ORR will take significant steps to ensure the assumed circumstances do not happen again. The penalties are likely to be severe for WCR.

 

Yes. you only have to look at those accidents in the UK that have happened in the last 50 years to see that "100's of deaths" is a gross exaggeration. Look at the close similarity of the Southall and Ladbroke Grove crashes and the number of fatalities from them.

What the hell does Hillsborough have to do with it?

 

Indeed, a good example to use. 6 dead.

 

The other point that hasn't been much remarked on is what was coming the other way. The seriousness at both Quintinshill and Harrow & Wealdstone was that after an initial crash between two trains, the wreckage was then hit a speed by a third train. The same could well have happened this time had there been a down train in the vicinity close enough that it couldn't be warned and stopped.

All told, it was a very lucky escape.

Tom

 

Okay then Mr Unknown. What do you think the death toll might have been if the collision had taken place? 5 dead, 50 dead, 75 dead etc. I find your postings on this matter quite extraordinary and very disrespectful to those who are in the thick of this. The reason the ORR are coming down like a ton of bricks on WCR is the magnitude of the event. Of course, no one can be sure how many might have died, but as I said before, it is not how many but the fact that several folk would have not survived. What is more, the whole thing could and should have been avoided.

 

That's a fair old leap from what actually happened. This thread is full of "if this" and "if that" but does the RAIB deal in what may have happened if a particular set of circumstances had come to pass that didn't actually happen?

 

One barometer of the medium term outlook will be if the none WCRC locos at 10A are taken to pastures new to earn some hire income. Only NYMR would be able to make use of registered status.

 

Firstly, let me say I am not downplaying the seriousness of the incident (although serious SPDAS happen on the railway every year) nor am I saying that any deaths are acceptable and yes only luck prevented a bad crash. I am merely trying to inject a sense of reality into the discussion. Harrow and Wealdstone was probably the very worse moving scenario possible, involving three packed services. Even given the ultimate storm of that event the death toll never made it into the "hundreds" (110 ish from memory). Another terrible scenario was Great Heck where a car landed onto the track and knocked a passenger service into the path of a coal train - (10 dead?). Potters Bar where a 100mph train is catapulted sideways onto a railway station, I need not go on - none of these approached HUNDREDS of deaths.





*Quintinshill is a unique glitch of history - Wooden carriages, packed troop trains, gas canisters, munitions.

 

As a former signalman, can I suggest that you guys read "Red for Danger". It was and still is I guess, the signalman's Bible". There are dozens of accounts of fatal rail accidents mostly caused by the actions of signalmen or engine drivers. There will also have been hundreds of near misses back in the steam days and even in the modern ere before much more sophisticated monitoring equipment was introduced. The end result in almost every case was loss of life. I agree that the Wootton Bassett incident was a very lucky escape.

I don't do as many mainline steam tours as I once did but as a "window" man with googles, woolly hat etc., I might well have been hanging out of the window on the approach to Wootton Bassett and would have seen the "distant" signal at caution and waited for the train to slow in preparation to stop at the signal ahead of it. As it barely slowed at all, I would have been very concerned and tempted to pull the communication cord because I would possibly have feared that the driver had not seen it. God knows what I would have thought if I had seen the signal protecting the junction at red. Probably have prayed!