Clapham Junction collision 29 years later

[Music] you know sometimes you have a problem you want to fix it but the way you can try and fix it only makes things worse that was unfortunately the case at Clapham Junction station just outside of London England in 1988 British Rail decided that it's 40 year old signal system needed to be replaced with a new one so signal maintainer x' as well as electricians went to work replacing the older signals with new ones however when it came to the Clapham Junction signal it was clearly not wired correctly this will cause it to display false information and cause do I say confusion and delay never thought I'd say that on December 12th 1988 718 train from passing Stoke to London Waterloo station which was a crowded train made up of three four car British Rail class 432 or for VP a.m. use was approaching Clapham Junction when the driver noticed that the signal ahead of him was red when it should have been yellow amazingly he had to stop his train and report the problem to the signal box my telephone however even got the reply saying that there was nothing wrong with the signal obviously that was complete bogus what he didn't know was that the 630 from Bournemouth was getting rubbish signals - it was made up of four British Rail class 432 for our EP cars and two for TC multiple units rounded a blind curve and slammed into the stop - physiques towed train wreckage tumbled all across the side of tracks a third train which was running light with no passengers and made up of two four cars for vep cars was passing on the adjacent line when it tripped over the wreckage as it was coming into the station that wasn't enough a fourth train was coming - thankfully it was only coasting with no traction curve so the engineer was able to see the trains and stop just in time before he could hit the wreckage after the war the crash subsided the driver of the badging snow train who was still standing by the telephone noticed his train was pushed forward several feet by the collision he immediately picked up the receiver and spoke to the signalman this time informing him of the horrible collision that had just occurred and asking him to immediately call emergency services the signalmen immediately switched all signals he could to danger and signal to the occasion signal boxes he had on the obstruction on the line however he had no control over the automatic signals and was not able to stop the fourth train which was luckily able to stop he then called the Clapham Junction stationmaster and asked him to call the emergency services and soon within minutes the rescuers were on the way the accident had tripped the high-voltage feed to the traction current so the operator in the nearby rains park electrical control room suspected that there must have been a derailment so we reconfigured the supply so that the nearby Wimbledon trains could run fine Wreckage however looked like something out of the Blitz bombings during world war two here's a cafe car or what's left of it with the roof caved in as another trip as the other train car plowed right through this one was thrown right to the side of the tracks the students and teachers from the adjacent and Manuel's school who were the firt and were the first on scene to the disaster when rescuers arrived they couldn't believe what they were seeing three trains crashed right into one another with badly injured people in the middle of it and chaos it was a mess [Music] the rescue however was hampered because the railway was in a cutting with metal fences at the top and a wall at the bottom of a wooden slope last casualty was taken to hospital at 1304 and the last body was removed at 1545 a total of 35 people lost their lives 69 were seriously injured and another 415 only sustained minor injuries an initial investigation revealed that the wiring on the signal was clearly messed up this would mean that the signal would not show a danger aspect when the track circuit immediately in front of the signal was occupied a 1978 British Rail southern region report that concluded that due to the age of the equipment three signalling needed to be done by 1986 however approval was given in 1984 after a report of three wrong-side signal failures the recycling project had been planned out assuming more people were available and employees felt that the program was inflexible and under pressure to get the work done installing and testing was carried out on the weekend during voluntary overtime the technician had been working a seven-day week for the previous 13 weeks the rewiring had been done a few weeks previously but the fault had only developed the previous day when equipment had been moved and the loose and uninstalled wire created a false feed to a relay the signalling technician in question did not cut back instil a tit or even tie back the loose wires and his work was not supervised more expected upon by an independent person as was required by British Rail in particular a wire count that would have identified the false wire had not been removed and was not carried out there was also inadequate training assessment supervision and even testing with a lack of understanding the risk of signal failures which were not monitored effectively after the accident testing was mandated on British Rail signaling work and the hours of employees involved in the safety critical work was very limited British Rail however was fine 250 thousand pounds for the breach of the health and safety Work Act two Americans like me that's three hundred and thirty three thousand twenty five US dollars ouch after the passing Stoke train stopped at the next signal after the faulty one in accordance with the rulebook it would suggest you that this may not be the best way of handling faulty signals if the passing Stoke train carried on to the signal following the next the crash probably wouldn't have happened because the Bournemouth train would have stopped the signal where the crash occurred as of 1999 the rulebook has not been changed unfortunately even 29 years after this crash some people say that the lessons of Clapham Junction may have been forgotten in December 29th 2016 a pair of redundant points at Cardiff central have been left into an unsafe condition undetectable by the signalling system thankfully the driver noticed this and prevented a serious accident from occurring excessive work hours the cancellation of route proving trains and a lack of detailing planning were cited as contributing factors up to the incident which begs the question will a wreck like the Clapham Junction collision ever happen again I sure hope not [Music] you

Channel: Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions

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Id: VNaQJs7aJWs

Length: 8min 5sec (485 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 11 2017