In case of any accident with motorised vehicles, whether on land, in the air or at sea, the main thing to bear in mind is that a massive amount of kinetic energy, determined by mass (weight) and velocity (speed) on impact and to a certain extent by construction characteristics of the vehicle(s) involved, has to … Continue reading The Technical Side of Things →

Acclaimed British railway journalist Roger Ford once calculated that for every SPAD committed by a train driver in Britain, whether or not leading to an accident, on average 17,000 signals at danger per driver a year were encountered that were dealt with properly, often for years on end. Taken together for the train driver population … Continue reading Signals Passed at Danger →

Errors on the railway, like everywhere else where people work, occur a number of times every single day yet accidents rarely happen. This is because previous experiences through history made us develop the sort of safety-layered operation that will prevent single mistakes from causing mishap, or will absorb individual mistakes without allowing events to spin … Continue reading The ever-present chain of events. →

An issue with a sideward impact on the above is the quality of traincrew training and management. It is tied in with company reluctance to recruit new staff due to the high cost of recruitment drives, training and occupation of management time in relation to uncertainty about future available work. Under the present European franchising … Continue reading Recruitment and training. →

As a first reason for the occurrence of rail accidents caused by traffic controllers or train crew I have no problem with the statement that either fatigue, physical ill health, the state of mind (notably in the form of pre-occupationand distraction) or a mix of the three was the primary cause. Which is no different from what … Continue reading Why rail accidents, then? →

Safety? A hapless fishmonger (background) in a Ford station car with trailer attached visited the Central Wholesale Market at Amsterdam for business sometime during the summer of 1981. Intent on finding a good place to park for business he clearly never expected a moving train and consequently didn't watch out. The locomotive driver (in the … Continue reading The Human and Technical Background of Railway Accidents. →

A Birds are not exempt from accidents. A wood pigeon usually smashed the at the time notoriously fragile headlight and horn covers of HST's  when doing 125 mph (200 km/h), as can be seen here. An introduction to International Accidents on and around Railways. The great majority of accidents are caused through human fallibility. However intricate … Continue reading Introduction →

My interest in transport safety is based on working 21 years on the UK railways, of which 10 years as train driver. After the Ladbroke Grove collision on 05-10-1999 I met and was honoured to co-operate with Stanley Hall, publishing articles and books on aspects of rail safety such as ATP and level crossings. After … Continue reading An Unexpected End to the Journey →