Southall rail crash
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The remains of Coach G of the HST |
The
Southall rail crash occurred on
September 19,
1997, on the
Great Western Railway line at
Southall, west
London. Six people were killed and over 150 were injured.
The crash occurred after the 1032
Great Western Intercity passenger train from
Swansea to
London Paddington, operating with a defective
Automatic Warning System indicator, went through a red signal (
SPAD) and collided with a freight train leaving its depot shortly before 13:20 local time.
If the
AWS equipment on the
HST passenger train had been working, the chance of the accident occurring would have been very substantially reduced, though not completely eliminated, since the AWS is only an advisory system. The driver's attention had been distracted and he did not observe the preceding signals visually but AWS would have given him a clear audible warning. Automatic train protection equipment would have almost certainly prevented the accident. The train was fitted with
ATP but this was also switched off. At the time of the accident, the ATP equipment was not required to be switched on and had proved troublesome in service, and drivers were not required to be trained in it. Following this accident and the
Ladbroke Grove rail crash, the train operating company
Great Western now requires all its HST trains to have ATP switched on (if the equipment is faulty the train is taken out of service).
The driver was initially charged with manslaughter but the case was dropped. Great Western Trains was fined £ 1.5 million for not having a system to ensure high speed trains were not operated for long journeys with AWS inoperative.
In hindsight, the action of the signalman in giving the freight train precedence over the HST with the faulty AWS has been criticised. However, this was a perfectly standard manoeuvre, and he would not have been aware that the HST AWS was faulty. One possible solution might have been to have defined a
train headcode that indicates a faulty AWS , for example "AWSF", and instruct signalmen to treat such trains with extra care, including giving such trains priority. However, the key point, as identified in the report, was that drivers had become increasingly reliant on
AWS with single-manning and high speeds, and that it was no longer acceptable to run trains at full speed if the equipment was inoperative. Operating rules were changed accordingly.
*
BBC News On this day article*Health and Safety Commission
report by Professor John Uff published
24 February 2000. 14 MB pdf file.
*
Report by the
Health and Safety Executive on progress made on the recommendations of the original report (February 2002). 333 kB pdf file.
*
