Talk:Ladbroke Grove rail crash

ATC

There is no mention in the article of the lack of ATC on the Thames Train, nor of the fact that the area was fitted with ATC when resignalled. I seem to recall that in the Southall crash the ATC was not operational on the HST, but was it in this accident? If the Thames Train had had operational ATC the disaster would have been averted. Could someone add this or indicate where to check the details? Sangwine 19:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Simon Wood

Note that an anon editor has recently changed the age of crash victim Simon Wood from 50 to 40. A Google search on "Simon Wood" +"Ladbroke Grove" shows up a Guardian article which gives his age as 40, all other references which quote an age are copies of the Wikipedia article, where I probably mis-typed the age in the first place. Therefore Mr Wood probably was 40 at the time of the accident, and Google results should not be used to revert his age. Apologies to Mr Wood's family for any distress caused. -- Arwel 22:29, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Enquiry

More detilas of the Cullen report would be in order, if anyone has them, please. Andy Mabbett 22:17, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

External Links Section Out of Date

A mention for any main authors of this article, following the HSE's removal of responsibility for railway safety, the Cullen report is no longer hosted on their site. Whether it is still hosted on the internet on the new RAIB website, I'm not sure. Alspittle 21:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Links updated to their new location at http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/ -- Arwel (talk) 19:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

can also be found at http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=142 194.217.39.228 15:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

List of victims

Mawkish and no real use to the article. So I've removed it. Dave 18:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

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John Prescott Quote

Can anyone provide the quotation from John Prescott immediately after the crash where he threw cost-benefit analysis of safety measures out of the window, and signed the railway up to a "no expense spared" safety regime? 194.217.39.228 15:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Non sequitur?

I am a bit uncomfortable with "... contributory factors, blaming Thames Trains' driver training procedures (Driver Hodder had only qualified two months earlier)."

Presumably once he had fully qualified, he could properly drive one day later, couldn't he? Afterbrunel (talk) 21:19, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately not - I've added a phrase to explain why Thames' Trains failed to give Driver Michael Hodder the necessary skills he should have had. Ivor the driver (talk) 07:06, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Dramatisation

The Geographic channel has recently (re-)screened a 1-hour feature devoted entirely to the crash. Perhaps an editor would like to dig out the relevant references 81.158.1.186 (talk) 15:34, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry - forgot to log in, Here is my ID Flying Stag (talk) 15:36, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Important technical point for railway nerds

I have always understood that this accident was 'head-on'. However, this week I have viewed a TV programme about the crash on the Geographic channel (see my edit at "Dramatisation" above).

The TV programme gives conflicting diagrams of the track layout at the scene of the crash. The first is a 3-D simulation which appears to show the Bedwyn train on a track converging with the one carrying the HST. This gives a potentially 'head-on' scenario, although in fact the HST was past the point of convergence, so in fact the impact was more of a glancing effect.

The second TV diagram however gives a different picture, viz: a close-up diagram of the layout as seen by the controller. In this diagram, the two trains are shown on PARALLEL tracks, giving no obvious direct possibility of collision. BUT this diagram shows a simple crossover between the converging trains allowing a transfer either way between the two parallel tracks. From the TV presentation it would seem that the two points (switches) were set 'in opposition', such that the HST would retain its position on its track, whereas the Bedwyn train would move over from its track to the other one (which is what happened), and forcing the second set of point blades as it passed through them.

This raises two questions on which I seek info from editors: 1, Is the 'controller's diagram' correct, in other words, does the layout consist of a crossover between two parallel tracks?

and, if the answer to 1 is YES, how does this fit with the long-established safety practice dating from the 19th century by which signals are interlocked with potential movements, and which I now explain further.

The conventional rules of interlocking mean that with the critical signal SN109 at red, then BOTH points would be locked AGAINST the crossover, thus protecting both trains. Put another way, it should not be possible for the signal to change to amber UNTIL a) there were no conflicting movements under way, and b) BOTH points had been changed to allow safe passage for the Bedwyn train. Since it seems agreed that the signal was in fact showing red, then is should not have been possible for the points to have been changed while a conflicting movement (the HST) was under way. Incidentally, the concept of a 'conflicing movement' was defined in the 19th century as anything moving within 440 yards, though this distance has no doubt been increased to meet modern speeds.

Do the formal reports cover the issue of interlocking. I guess they must do, but am not in a position to check out the detail.

I hope someone can help. Flying Stag (talk) 16:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

See the HSE report; the layout is shown on page 51 in Acrobat Reader, numbered 47 bottom centre. The route taken by the DMU is the black dashed line; that of the HST is the grey dashed line. At the point of collision, the six bidirectional tracks from Paddington (indicated as "Line 1" to "Line 6") are coming down to four (Up Relief, Down Relief, Up Main, Down Main - although it looks like six tracks at the bottom, the leftmost two are the carriage roads to Old Oak Common). The HST was coming in on the Up Main, and the DMU, originally on Line 4, had moved to Line 3, which was one of those that didn't continue westwards. So, it's kind-of a parallel track, in that it is parallel east of the crossover. Signal SN109 aside, a contributory factor was that points were set which directed the DMU towards the up main; but they could have been set for the down relief, and if this had been done the Bedwyn train would have moved away from, instead of towards, the HST. See the Cullen report, section 3, particularly 3.13 et seq. The collision was not-quite head-on: see sections 4.2 and 4.4 --Redrose64 (talk) 17:47, 23 November 2011 (UTC)