Hogwarts - Nearly A Nasty Accident

Most papers long ago dispensed with any pretence of knowing one end of rail and air travel from the other: the best they can manage nowadays is to have someone road testing the latest motahs. So when West Coast Railways (WCR) had their operating licence suspended by Network Rail (NR) recently, the best the nationals could manage was the Mail’s “Hogwarts Express suspended”.

Tangmere, the loco hauling the excursion train

The report continued “Services by West Coast Railways have been suspended following the incident on March 7 in which a train failed to stop at a signal … According to reports, a 100mph collision between a steam excursion and a First Great Western high speed train was missed by barely a minute”. Apart from getting the speeds all wrong, and missing just how potentially serious the incident was, it’s not a bad first attempt.

What the press has not told its readers is that there could have been a serious accident, and that the operation of a WCR excursion train appears to have bordered on the reckless. As the RAIB report notes, “train reporting number 1Z67, the 16:35 hrs service from Bristol Temple Meads to Southend, passed a signal at danger on the approach to Wootton Bassett junction, Wiltshire. The train subsequently came to a stand across the junction”.

Track layout at Wootton Bassett junction ((c) RAIB)

In other words, blocking any movement to and from the South Wales lines (see diagram). Had a train been signalled on those lines at the time the Signal Passed At Danger, or SPAD incident took place, you do not need any prompting to be able to figure out what would have happened. So how could a train have overshot a red signal on a line equipped with the Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS), which should have prevented it?

This is where it all becomes truly jaw-dropping. The driver of train 1Z67 failed to acknowledge an Automatic Warning System (AWS) signal for a temporary speed limit on the approach to Wootton Bassett Junction. The brakes therefore applied automatically. The train should have come to a stand and the crew would then be expected to contact the signaller. But someone in the cab overrode the automatic brake application.

“Evidence shows that the driver and fireman instead took an action which cancelled the effect of the AWS braking demand”. This “had the effect of making subsequent AWS or TPWS brake demands ineffective”. The train should have slowed after getting a single yellow signal approaching the junction, but did not. When the driver saw the red signal, he braked too late. TPWS would have done the job for him. But see above.

Safety systems like AWS and TWPS have evolved after decades of hard lessons have been learned - like what happens when such safeguards are absent. You want an example? That excursion was hauled by steam locomotive Tangmere. In the days before AWS and TPWS, sister loco Spitfire rear-ended another train near Lewisham in heavy fog. Ninety people lost their lives (full accident report HERE).

That’s why it’s serious. Today’s Railway cannot allow unsafe and reckless practices to develop. And today’s press needs to understand and report this kind of incident.