Train accidents

[Buffin]

Real life train accidents don't come much smaller than this

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/train_crash_at_norwich_station_may_have_been_caused_by_driver_s_microsleep_says_report_1_3581792

But it got me to wondering ... what's the worst train accident anyone's had on their layout? 

[Sprintex]

Luckily mine was in the fiddle yard so no scenery damage, but it was at the 2009 NGS AGM

My 2+8 HST was at near max speed with the motorised car pushing when it went over a bump caused by a piece of track not stuck down properly. The first coach derailed, jammed, resulting in a whole-train concertina as the motor car was still pushing. Unfortunately the Class 37 hauled freightliner was coming the other way at the time

Net result: HST and freight train strewn across the fiddle yard hence no trains running for 10 minutes, hastily reassembled freight sent out, but three HST coaches lost their couplings and springs into outer space. More frantic activity trying to rob spare coaches of their couplings to get the HST back out as apart from two DMUs these were the only trains I had converted to DCC at the time!


Paul

[Ian Morton]

I had a similar one at an exhibition - fortunately a village hall job rather than a high profile event.

Intermodal with Megafret, spine and twins sitting in fiddle yard when the propelled Wresham & Shropshire set rear-ended it.

The resulting pile up managed to derail every train in the fiddle yard! 

[dutchkev]

The report said the driver had previous history indicative that he was prone to lapses in concentration, and that this had not been identified by Greater Anglia's competence management system.

"Opportunities to formally review the driver's operational history were missed and this was also not identified by the internal audits

conducted by Greater Anglia," the report added.

How I read the above is
"Its not the drivers fault." 
"He was useless, and regularly proved it." 
"It was the company fault for not realising he was useless." 

[GrahamB]

I always remember this from my childhood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMxJtMoTnx8

[EtchedPixels]

How I read the above is
"Its not the drivers fault." 
"He was useless, and regularly proved it." 
"It was the company fault for not realising he was useless." 

Drivers are human. They have human medical conditions and microsleeps are something we all do but some far more than others. In particular it's a problem with some medical conditions like sleep aponea. It's also btw one reason drivers stop short of a signal, a momentary distraction or nap rolling up to it could be bad.

The medical screening and other processes are meant to pick these up so that drivers with such problems get appropriate medical treatment and then hopefully can get back on the job. (the US process may well be to fire them on the spot, but we are a bit more civilised  )

Accident reports don't assign blame. It's a fundamental part of the process that they only seek to stop it happening again and make things safer.

There's another good example of why being pragmatic and not dealing with blame is useful. There's an older report where a driver got a red signal in the pouring rain and completely against policy  rolled up to the signal so he could use the phone without getting wet. He was distracted or had a microsleep and rolled past the signal onto the catchpoints.

The accident report recommended moving the phone. Moving the phone where the driver should stop removes the incentive to do the wrong thing. It recognizes that drivers will always be tempted like the rest of us to do that.

Now the driver in that case may well have gotten into serious  but that would have been dealt with via other channels.

Alan

[bridgiesimon]

Not me personally but I was exhibitng at a show a couple of years ago and a live steam SM32 loco jumped the tracks and piled off the layout hitting an old lady sitting nearby.

Loco ok but lady not ok, scalds and badly injured leg!!

Best wishes
Simon

[Zakalwe]

it amazes me there aren't more incidents like this.

the average human can concentrate on a specific task for around 30 minutes before mind will wander / micro sleeps etc happen especially when sitting still looking at roughly the same visual stimulus.... remeber what it ws liek staying awake at school

i know, i've done many requirements gathering workshops and facilitated many other meetings and you have to do something different after 30 minutes else performance drops