Near miss at Glos Warks

BBC News - Three escape car which dropped on to Cheltenham railway

 

There are certainly getting good practice at operating emergency procedures at the G&WR! Let's hope they have better luck in 2012.

Richard

 

a preservation Heck crash.

Thankfully not as bad as the Land Rover from the M62 onto the ECML.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/crash-car-land ... 33657.html

Three people had a miraculous escape after their car crashed through a railway bridge on to the track below, in front of an on-coming steam train.
Two cars collided on the bridge that crossed over the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway (GWR) near the village of Southam, Gloucestershire, at around 1.30pm.
One of the cars fell 20 feet onto the track below the bridge on Southam Lane and landed on its roof. The train that was travelling along the line managed to stop before hitting the car. No injuries were reported.

 

Re: a preservation Heck crash.

The link you've given seems to be broken somehow.

 

Re: a preservation Heck crash.

Correct URL is http://uk.news.yahoo.com/crash-car-lands-front-train-184633657.html

This is already discussed here: http://railways.national-preservation.com/general-railway-chat/34107-near-miss-glos-warks.html

(Mods - can we choose one thread to discuss and lock / redirect the other?)

Tom

 

Re: a preservation Heck crash.

Threads merged.

Neil.

 

After the ECML tragic incident I recall an exercise nationally to risk assess road over rail bridges undertaken by Local Highway Authorities and Railtrack/NR with resulting upgrade work to safety barriers etc carried out in quite a number of places across the whole country.

Did this exercise include heritage railways?

- it might be that this stretch of line was closed at the time and escaped assessment?

- it is quite possible that by a slight change of timing this could have resulted in a much more serious incident.

 

I think that even if a steam loco had hit the car at 25mph, the car would have come off rather worse.

The M1 accident involved a much lighter leading vehicle than a steam loco - and it was doing 100+mph

 

Indeed, and with far more wide-ranging repercussions for preserved railways. Imaging if it had actually struck the rear carriage; that could've been enough to de-rail it , if the car had gone under the rear bogie and acted like a ramp. Some may scoff; but the fact remains it could have happened and that has to be taken into account.

Lucky escape for the car's occupants, train or no train.

 

No doubt this will spark off all sorts of daft suggestions covering every possible scenario, no matter how unlikely,from the paranoid Health & Safety brigade.

 

daft suggestions covering every possible scenario, no matter how unlikely,from the paranoid Health & Safety brigade.[/QUOTE]

Good idea - let's speculate the heck out of this one. Not because H&S is paranoid, especially; but bearing in mind that the combination of possible result of an incident, combined with its likelihood, gives a mature and practical assessment of the risk.

So - let's assume a Land Rover, large SUV or similar, coming off a bridge (possibly with a substantial section of parapet masonry). It hits the exposed footplate of a heritage railway engine, killing or disabling the crew. The train is working uphill with 5 or so on, well-filled with passengers on a gala day. Nobody else on the train is aware of the incident - or some human error/ mechanical fault has disabled the brake dump from the coaching stock. The train clears the summit and merrily continues on its way until it hits something at (let's go for) 35? 40?mph.

Everyone would say this is ridiculous - rightly so, but it is a foreseeable worst case. Take the possible result: multiple death and injury, and set it against the likelihood: unimaginably tiny. Then you have a risk assessment: so small as to be nugatory. From there, you take account of the practicable measures that would be needed to counter such a minuscule risk, including the costs. At which point, even the most paranoid of H&S zealots would take no action.

Bashing H&S paranoia is not in itself a bad thing, as it keeps safety systems managers on their toes. But it can also be a lazy reaction to justify not changing bad practices. And when staring at the fatality in the four-foot it's a bit late to say 'we didn't think to assess or manage the risk'.

Roger

 

Wow what a scenario !.. there could be another 100 or so possible scenarios.. all of which may have never happened before and may never happen again.
Other than a Light Engine movement, or one involving a large aircraft, ship, aliens, Tsunami, Earthquake or Hollywood ? I couldn't foresee a scenario where the entire staff of a train, including the guard would be wiped out on a preserved railway whilst a train is moving.. or where no one will notice and we end up with the "Silver Streak" situation.

 

Exactly - straight away you come up with a scenario adaptation which actually could make my sketchy RA that little bit more likely (because more believable). But the tiny bit of additional likelihood doesn't make the risk appreciably any greater. That's the fun of Risk Assessment - though God forbid that a legal obligation should be fun.

Roger

 

Returning to reality for a moment - the GWSR press release suggests that this is the third time in recent years that a car has ended up on the line.

So a proper reassessment of the site from the highway point of view in particular, taking into account the possible consequences of these incidents would hardly be an over reaction in safety terms.

 

Were they all from the same bridge?

 

No but this is the 2nd from this bridge (Southam Lane) the other one being from the bridge next to Cheltenham Race Course. (In that incident though I believe the car had been driven down the embankment.) If you read the GWSR news article it also states that the local authority was asked to put in a crash barrier at the Kayte Lane/Southam Lane road junction but didn't think it necessary. Maybe they will now and the GWSR is going to resubmit the case from what I have read. Personally 2011 was a rubbish year in many respects (with one of the few bright moments for me being a footplate ride on 2807) and the GWSR has really had a rough time. However, there has been tremendous support from a very wide cross section of supporters and also other heritage lines. Also the Broadway station rebuild has made tremendous progress over the last 12 months. Let us now hope that the incident on 31 Dec last was the last gremlin but I do understand the need to assess risks (Jim Reason's Swiss cheese model and all that) and there is always a gremlin around somewhere! Here's to 2012 and a reconnected, obstruction free GWSR!

 

The Highways Authority (Glos CC in this case) will I am sure review the situation in the light of all the factors - 2 incidents will undoubtedly influence things, but they may have been caused by totally different factors. HA's obviously have limited budgets and will always have to prioritise expenditure.

 

IIRC there was an incident a few years ago on the Swanage Railway, when a car went off the road on a bend during the night and plunged down onto the track, where it was only spotted when the morning train came along! I think that too was a location prone to previous accidents, tho' not of the same nature. Not long afterwards the Highway Authority erected a hefty barrier!