Train crash UK

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For those hoping to fathom the news from Bedford, this will be essential:

AWS: Automatic Warning System

TPWS: Train Protection and Warning System

TSS: Train Stop System (component of TPWS)

OSS: Overspeed System (component of TPWS)

GSM-R: Global System for Mobile Communications: Railway

EMU: Electric Multiple Unit

MML: Midland Main Line

SPAD: Signal Passed at Danger

RAIB: Rail Accident Investigation Branch

BTP: British Transport Police

EMR: East Midlands Railway

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So. Have you already looked up the facts online? No? Do that first, I'm not going to describe it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Bedf ... _collision

The central facts:

Reports say 360 (the following train) decelerated gently, not harshly, prior to crashing at perhaps 30mph into 810 (the stopped train) on the fast up line 1.4 miles south of Bedford station. 360 had made a timetabled stop at Bedford, 810 hadn't when it went through around half an hour earlier.

Any train running a red light is immediately automatically stopped harshly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_Pro ... ing_System

Conclusion: 360 did not encounter a red light anywhere between departing Bedford and crashing into 810. That's not "maybe vegetation blocked the driver's view of a signal", it's "no red light".

And that's a systems failure with two trains allowed onto the same track section.

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The other point that could be made is that this is not two trains colliding head-on. This is a moving train, four hours before sunset under bright blue skies, with clear visibility down the track, not braking hard, running smack into the back of a stationary train.

I note airline pilots train in simulators to see and understand circumstances they would only encounter rarely if ever, and to experience viscerally and repeatedly what works and what doesn't. Train drivers don't have that luxury. Perhaps they ought. I presume there are train drivers who have never applied their brakes hard in their lives, valuing their skill at not distressing passengers. Simply reading in a manual that emergencies can happen is inadequate.

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And there buried in the fine detail of today's article is the reason: "Dave Calfe, the general secretary of train driver union ASLEF, welcomed the investigation and said the incident may have been avoided if the train protection and warning system (TPWS) had been installed in that location." - without the TPWS there's no forced harsh braking, there was a red signal but it was only 9 seconds from the crash site, the 360 driver had everything thrown at him in a rush: seeing the red signal and the stopped train with no remaining time to prevent the collision. Two trains in a row see the same red signal and stop, one quicker than the other. Nothing in the system prevents 360 from getting that close to the stopped train.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly90nqpryko

And the collision was at 49mph which makes far more sense than the passenger estimate of 20mph and properly accounts for the consequences.

I'm appalled there are signals with no TPWS fitted, what do these Rail companies do with the fortunes they dribble away every year. Ah... they pay dividends and bloated board salaries. By all means tell me I've got that wrong.

[Bryn Mawr]

The one that worries me is that the signal prior to the red should have been Amber, proceed with caution with the implication that the next signal will be red.

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The red signal is just prior to a bridge. I wonder whether the light/dark contrast on a sunny day heading south with a bridge to see under may have made the stopped train less easy to interpret, and focused attention away from the signal itself. But the reports of soft braking rather than harsh are still there once the red light has been passed, and suddenly discovering TPWS isn't universal across the system with its automated harsh braking after a red light overrun, that's the background which must be addressed.