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Accident at Welshpool (16 July 2013)

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fsmr

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In the summer harvest I saw a novel way of working on the Oakham Petrborough line on one of the combined bridleway / occupation Lcs
With a stream of tractors and full trailers and emptys ferrying grain over , the contractor had their own "crossing keeper" working phoning the box and working the gates, presumably to reduce delays to the workgetting in and out closing gates etc and also remove the risk of any drivers not phoning
however a possible grey area should anything untoward happen
 
ValleyLines142

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The undamaged half of 158823 is now in the sidings at Cardiff Canton depot. If you board a City Line service you'll be able to see it when passing the depot.
 
Zoidberg

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... and the court case started today.

An extract from http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/two-men-appear-court-following-6342930

Two men from Mid Wales today pleaded not guilty to endangering the safety of passengers and crew, following a crash between a train and a tractor/trailer last summer.

Tractor driver Ifan Gwyn Evans,28, of Llanfihangel, Llanfyllin and John Elwyn Roberts, of Welshpool, both denied a charge of endangering the safety of persons using the railway and were placed on unconditional bail at Welshpool Magistrates' Court.
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Zoidberg

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The RAIB has published its report which may be accessed from http://www.raib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports/reports_2014/report062014.cfm

Here's the Summary:

At 11:44 hrs on Tuesday 16 July 2013 a collision occurred between a passenger train and a farm trailer at Buttington Hall farm crossing near Welshpool on the line between Shrewsbury and Machynlleth. The tractor driver and two other people nearby sustained minor injuries and two passengers on the train were injured and taken to hospital, but were discharged later that day.

The train involved was operated by Arriva Trains Wales and consisted of two 2-car units. It was travelling at 120 km/h (75 mph) at the time of the collision. The train was running from Birmingham International to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli and there were 140 passengers and two crew members on board. On the day of the accident, the farm crossing was being used by tractors bringing in a harvest from fields on the opposite side of the line to the farm. The farmer had appointed a contractor to carry out the harvesting operation, and an attendant had been provided at the crossing to phone the signaller and operate the gates.

The accident occurred because the system of work in use at the crossing was inherently unsafe, leading to ineffective control of road vehicle movements over the crossing and frequent use of the crossing without the signaller being contacted. This system broke down. There were also underlying management factors:
- the harvest contractor did not implement an effective safe system of work at the crossing;
- Network Rail’s process for risk assessment of these types of crossing did not adequately deal with periods of intensive use; and
- Network Rail’s instructions to users of these crossings did not cover periods of intensive use.

The RAIB has made three recommendations:
- main line infrastructure managers should improve the risk assessment process at these crossings to take into account the increased risk during periods of intensive use;
- main line infrastructure managers should define safe and practical methods of working to be adopted at these crossings during periods of intensive use; and
- RSSB should update the level crossing risk management toolkit to reflect the changes brought about by the second recommendation.

The RAIB has also noted a learning point from an observation made during the investigation concerning the prolonged closure of an adjacent level crossing on a main road after the accident.
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455driver

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The person twiddling the steering wheel is ultimately responsible for what the vehicle does no matter which 3rd party gave him permission.

Personally, in circumstances like this, I dont agree with it but it is what it is.
 
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fsmr

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Exactly the situation that occurs at Eggleton as per post in Nov http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1617752&postcount=64

It would seem that there has been failings on all sides TBH. Perhaps there should be more formal meetings between NWR supervisors and managers and the crossing users and land owners to cater for these high volume situations. Maybe some license agreement that has to be entered into to keep the LC open. I can see insurance companies being very wary of covering employer liability where these crossing are used as part of a work environ

That of course will come out in the on going court case

Quite how you can verify someone's formal competence at controlling large movements of vehicles over a user worked crossing for others to cross without some formal training input from NWR I dont know
But I would guess the same situation arises where pipeline or electricity transmission line/ wind turbines construction etc encounters high volume traffic crossing a railway over a user worked LC and so must have been addressed before

Would NWR supply a crossing keeper or supervisor for a nominal rate during high volume use, given the high cost to the industry in just financial terms of an incident
Of course even NWR employees still; make mistakes when it comes to LCs although the risk is very much reduced. Thanks god no one was seriously injured
 
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I don't really understand why any formal competence would be required, or indeed what it'd cover, referring to the Egleton example rather than the Welshpool report, which I'm yet to read. After all, the 'attendant' is only following the instructions provided for any other member of the public wishing to use the crossing - the only difference being that the attendant is doing it rather than the vehicle driver (no different to a passenger hopping out to speak to the signalman and operate the gates?), which provides an element of coordination. I'd certainly prefer to deal with a single attendant (of sorts) rather than a multitude of individual drivers who are more likely to leave gates open, keep letting each other across, fail to call back and so on.
 
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fsmr

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Tomnick said:
I don't really understand why any formal competence would be required, or indeed what it'd cover, referring to the Egleton example rather than the Welshpool report, which I'm yet to read. After all, the 'attendant' is only following the instructions provided for any other member of the public wishing to use the crossing - the only difference being that the attendant is doing it rather than the vehicle driver (no different to a passenger hopping out to speak to the signalman and operate the gates?), which provides an element of coordination. I'd certainly prefer to deal with a single attendant (of sorts) rather than a multitude of individual drivers who are more likely to leave gates open, keep letting each other across, fail to call back and so on.
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Hi Tom, I was only citing Eggleton as that was what I observed back in August and posted about in November before the facts were known as a way of making it "safer" using a dedicated crossing operator, which now turns out to have been the same situation as at Welshpool

From the report "no documentary evidence of assessment of competence".

Normally in industry this would involve some form of formal training and test which could only be supplied by an outside agency such as NWR or one of its partners

It would seem that there was an awful lot of failings on both sides, not least the Signaller who having had no confirmation that the LCX was clear should have cautioned the next train through.
Given the volume of tractors and calls required, I can see a situation where the signaller is also being overloaded and distracted and so in these situations that last for just a day or so at Harvest, maybe extra resources would also be needed on NWR part to handle the calls

Dont know Tom but I can imaging if you received 150 requests and 150 confirmation calls over 2 day period from one user crossing, your other tasks might be compromised or delayed

I suspect that the traditional way of working for years on many user worked Lcs at Harvest would be to just leave the gates open with an observer waving the tractors over with no phone use and hope to cross in time

relevant part of the report:

The crossing attendant was employed by DM Roberts for this contract and had done this job for them two or three times a year for the previous five years. He stated that his task was to phone the signaller when a tractor needed to cross the line so that the tractor drivers did not have to stop and get out of their tractors. The RAIB found no documentary evidence of an assessment of his competence.
54 There were five tractors and trailers employed in carrying the silage from the fields to the farm. Each tractor had to cross the line in each direction on every trip and DM Roberts estimated that the work required a total of approximately 150 trips in each direction over the two day harvest period. This frequency of usage meant that there was limited time between tractors crossing for the gates to be closed and opened.
55 The crossing attendant stated that he found it difficult to operate the gates as he was recovering from a recent hip operation, so left them in the open position and stood in the road to stop tractors crossing when it was unsafe. The latches which held the gates open were not effective and the attendant had used an old tyre to hold the gate open on the field side. The need to move this tyre to operate the gate increased the work needed for the task.
56 The tractor drivers were aware that the attendant was making phone calls to the signaller to get permission to cross, but witness evidence was unclear as to how the outcome of the call was to be communicated to the tractor driver. Some witnesses stated that the gates were closed to show that it was not safe to cross, and some stated that the attendant would stand in the road to signal that it was not safe to cross. All agreed that if there was no attendant at the crossing they would stop and phone for permission to cross, and a phone call made at 15:56 hrs the day before suggests that they did this (paragraph 61).
57 The method of stopping tractors whereby the attendant stood in the road was prone to failure if the attendant was using the crossing phone or was otherwise distracted.
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Tomnick

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Having read the report, it's apparent that there were failings all round at Welshpool! If the risk assessment properly considered the intensive crossing use at harvest time, then I'm sure that some sort of mitigation would have been required - either a formalisation of the process to give the crossing away for an hour or more at a time (as subsequently happened, it appears) or the provision of an attendant employed by the railway (who pays?). In the absence of that, though, I'd still argue that it's the authorised user's responsibility (the farmer in this case) to ensure that any of his employees and contractors are aware of the procedure for getting vehicles across, whether as drivers themselves or acting as an agent for multiple vehicles.

I certainly wouldn't want to deal with 150 vehicles crossing (in each direction!) over a couple of days - indeed, especially if treated as large or slow vehicles (where clause 2.1.2 applies and signal protection must be provided), I doubt they'd get across that many times at Egleton midweek - so I do agree that it'd help both parties to get together and try to come up with something workable, rather than relying on the staff 'on the ground' to keep the job moving whilst trying to work within the rules and regs.
 
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Tomnick

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Indeed - the principle surely remains the same though, and protection can be provided using the block markers in a similar manner?
 
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Tomnick

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I'm not sure where this is going - my only reference to 2.1.2 was to suggest that it'd be impossible to apply it at Egleton (near Oakham) 150 times on a typical weekday!
 
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One thing I picked up was that the signaller was unable to authorise road vehicles to pass the wigwags.
I was under the impression that the only person who was able to authorise that WAS a signaller.
 
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Indeed not - we shouldn't ever authorise users to pass the wigwags at an AHB, only explain that it's failed and advise them to find an alternative route. It's widely stated that this is covered in legislation somewhere, but I'm not sure whether that's actually the case or whether it's just covered by the signalling regs. I'm equally unsure whether it also applies at an MCB crossing, or a CCTV crossing under local control, as the regs make no mention of it!
 
callum112233

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Looking at the picture of the train involved, it came out quite unscathed considering it was doing 75 when it hit the trailer :o
 
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