Commuter Train Crashes into Station | Plainly Difficult

when you think of Railways the first thing that usually pops into mind is trains understandable as it's the thing you climb aboard whether it's on a day trip overnight sleeper or the dreaded sweaty commuter service but a railway is more than just its Vehicles true they are often the drawer for passengers however they are just one part of the greater machine the rails are pretty important well it is in its name they are the unsung heroes and their healthy condition can never be understated today's video is about the rails and the highly complex parts around Point work welcome to plainy difficult and in this video we're looking at The Potter's bar rail [Music] disaster background so I'm going to divide this video's context filling in section into two parts one a brief history of of Potter's bar train station and another on the geeky side of point workk my main research material came in the form for this video from the hsse report and the rssb investigation into disaster and as always the link keys will be in the description below I'll also Link in some other bits and pieces as we go along such as newspaper articles oh and also I'll be drawing on my experience in the rail industry as well now you don't get an image like this from a good day at the office I should say this is probably the first picture I've ever actually seen of posters bar train station anywh who catastrophe aside the town of Potter barar has a railway station is roughly 12 M and 57 chains from London and is in the county of Hertford which is around here on a map as a side note a chain is a measurement of distance and there are 80 to a mile and on the railway we still use chains for some reason as well as kilometers feet yards and meters just because well the UK is a messed up measurement living nightmare I like to call it imper metric the station opened in its first form in 1850 and saw changes to its buildings and platforms over the years its final layout had two 160 m long 11 M wide Island platforms which were partially covered by reinforced concrete canopies which were installed in the 1950s the station serves stopping services but also is part of the East Coast Mainline as such trains go fast through the station the track layout was down slow for stopping Services down fast for non-stopping trains and up fast and up slow and down in our case today means away from London and up is towards London the line speed is 115 mph at least it was in 2002 and to allow trains to change lines there are points at the southern London end of the station this allows down fast trains to cross over onto the slow lines and for up fast and slow services to change tracks but layout also allow the train to come into Potter's bar on the down slow terminate allow for the driver to change ends and then head back towards London on the fast or slow lines regardless all we really need to know is that there are points here and it's pretty common across many stations in the United Kingdom as it affords flexibility in what Services trains can run in particular at Potter's bar the point's normal position was set for straight through running from the perspective of track maintenance the point work south of Potter bar was designated a Red Zone I.E working on the area brought in the risks of train movements and would likely need a line Block in layman's terms to stop all trains in the area in order to inspect or maintain the infastructure the term red zone is no longer used in the current Ro book however when This Disaster happened which was 201 2 it was so needless to say having the points in this area add some aggro to maintenance work on site well we've always chat about Point work let's have a look eh so points or switches as are known in some other places in the world allow trains to change lines they are vital in enabling multiple trains to run on a network as if they didn't exist then trains would just be locked into one particular track and just go up and down points are simple but ingenious they made of several very important components first of all there are the stock rails and these are fixed then you have to switch rails or blades these can move and depending on the intended Direction allow the wheel to run along it you see the train wheel flanges are like this and thus they need to be able to cross the rail this is done here with the actual Crossing section basically an interruption of the rail head to allow the wheel to slip through finally once the wheels have moved over the point they go through a thing called a check gril but make sure the wheel is in the correct position so with the blades moving there is a risk that they can go out of gauge I.E too wide or too narrow for the wheels distance between each other in the UK the standard gauge is used which is 4T 8 and 1/2 in wide this holding of gauge is done by things called stretcher bars these can be adjusted as they have threaded ends which pass through a support bracket in which a nut each side is threaded on the bracket is then attached to the switch Rail and the points machine was attached to the points via a lock stretcher bar now today's story will be mainly about this set of points to the south of pobar numbered 2182 needless to say maintenance is key for their safe operation as being on the fast lines they take quite a beating from very heavy and quick moving trains now the area is remotely controlled by the king's cross signal box and a line is electrified with overhead lines of 25 k s of AC so that was a basic background let's have a little advert break great to see you back so I need to quickly mention something that is rather important to our story and that is of a rough ride now it's not what your dirty mind is thinking of is actually an event of a train passing over a section of track and for whatever reason is bounced around causing the feeling of a train to be not stable or rough ride as you will many things can cause this eroded B track out of gauge rails a train's Wheels hunting around corners broken fish plates loads of things really but also a rough ride can be caused by 4y Point work how the exact location of a rough ride is pinpointed really depends on who reports it for example if it's a driver then they can get a mile poost number a stanion number Signal number or even nearest Junction name the list is very exhaustive such events are easily zeroed in on but it's much more difficult if a passenger reports it because well they might just say it happened between X and Y station making a search area of miles a track rather than just a few yards but regardless of how a rough ride is reported the way it's investigated is usually the same a train will be held at a red signal before the affected area after which the signal will inform the driver of a rough ride and to proceed a caution over the affected area when at a pre-agreed location the driver is then to contact the signaler and Report their findings this type of out of course working is fairly regular depending on what the driver says another few more trains can also inspect the area and if a problem is found then track workers are sent to the site and now we can start with our disaster narrative so get your bingo cards at the ready the disaster so our Story begins the evening before the crash on the 9th of May 2002 a station announcer is traveling home from Finsbury Park to his home in stevenage this is at around 9:00 p.m. in the evening as a train is traveling towards Potter's bar actually I'll tell you in the person's own words that's written in page 61 of the rssb final report the train dipped to the left hand side it then seemed to jolt downwards then as it passed over the down fast to down slow points it dipped to the left as it traveled across the bridge over dark's Lane the train lifted and lent to the left passed over the bridge and then lent back to the right as it came off the bridge when the staff member got to stevenage he reported the rough ride the station supervisor then reported it further up the chain of command to the signal some confusion came around as to who had reported the rough ride and as to what line and points it had occurred on as somewhere along the communications chain the report of a rough ride was taken to be on the up fast service rather than actually on the the down fast service nevertheless a rail track member of Staff went down to investigate he was looking at the points on the up fast shining his torch over the stretcher bars and their support brackets and Associated bolts and nuts and all look good the member of Staff informed the signal box all looked good and well but he would wait to observe the next UPF fast service travel over the points everything was fine and as such the report went no further however he had been looking King at the wrong points it is just after lunch on the 10th of May 2002 and train 2 Papa 26 is departing King's cross the 1234 service was set to run along the fast line and cross onto the slow at Potter's bar this was to allow a fast service to overtake it this was the 1245 King's cross to King's Lin train with the head code of one Tango 60 the stopping service navigated the points and the signal at King's cross saw no issues with setting the route and resetting the points 21 82 back to their normal through running position all the required root set lights were showing on the signalers panel now the fast service was operated by West Anglia Great Northern and was a fourcc car class 365 unit capable of a top speed of 100 mph it had departed King's cross on time and along its Journey the train was happily climbing up to its top speed as train W Tango 60 approached Potter's bar the driver noticed the signal on the down slow just outside the station changed from green to red and then back to green again as the front of the train reached the platform at Potter's bar the driver noticed a strange JT followed by more severe jts the driver took the power off all of a sudden his line light extinguished and the train began to give alarms normally when the line line goes out it means you've got no juice I.E electricity and this was the case well kind of actually what had happened was that the train had separated but the driver didn't know this until the train came up in a heap so as the train had gone over the set of points the first two carriages and first bogey of the third had successfully made it across the rear bogey of the third carriage had become derailed and the rear bogey of the fourth Carriage derailed and then riled onto the crossover pushing it broadside to the direction of travel the fourth Carriage became detached from the rest of the formation and running at an angle to the track Direction flipped and crashed into the platform at Potter's bar becoming lodged at a 45° angle underneath the canopy resulting in this during the flip the bridge over dark's Lane was smashed into sending Dey and masonry smashing into the road Below in doing so striking passer by Agnes Quinn liven killing her so by now the three remaining carriages had come to a stop the Sigler noticed several sections becoming occupied on his panel this along with Point work showing out of alignment and it prompted the signal to replace all down signals in the area to Danger a rail track production supervisor at Potter bar called the signal informing them that a major accident had occurred soon enough it was apparent that six people aboard the rear Carriage of the train had died and in addition of Agnes Quinn liven the death toll as reported by The Guardian newspaper Medics said five people had died at the scene and two further people died later in hospital Herford Sher and beder ambulance services said a further 15 people had serious injuries some of these are now said to be critical a local GP assess 70 walking wounded now there was one hell of a mess to be cleared up and lead us to say the cause had to be found out and this leads us up to the next section of the video aftermath and investigation the health and safety executive set up an investigation board and along with rail track Her Majesty's rail inspectorate the British transport police and the rssb looked into the immediate and underlying causes of the derailment now the report of a rough ride was more than a coincidence and when investigators looked over the crash site it was clear to see that the points had played a part the physical evid allowed the hsse to reconstruct events alongside the trained on board data recorder clearly the points were the cause of the derailment but why well two theories would be thrown out so let's start with the least credible I should prefix this Theory with don't forget this is 2002 and terrorism was on a lot of people's minds so the engineering company in charge of Maintenance of the point work in the area called Jarvis rail would push out the theory of s sabotage yes rather bizar no and it was easily refutable with the evidence that the crash scene and especially when investigators looked at other Jarvis rail maintain Point workor other issues shall we say could be seen in their maintenance schedules you see interestingly during the investigation the points in question had actually had some maintenance work undertaken on them by Jarvis ra on the 1st of May just a few days before and during interviews with Jarvis staff it became clear that many didn't really understand the type of adjustable stretcher bars used on the points in the rssb final report they would say the lack of a training program was the result of the failure to produce a procedure for the installation of adjustable stretcher bar assemblies despite the stated intention in 1993 to do so ah so maybe sabotage was not the cause then maybe Javis rail was undertaking a little case of deflection this leads us onto the the second and more likely cause in that point stretcher assemblies were not properly tightened thus allowing them to gradually become loose and interfere with the running of trains it was also found that vibrations from passing trains could cause the stretcher bars nuts to work themselves free the poor maintenance sadly could have been discovered when the rough ride was reported but the breakdown in communication between the reporting staff member the signal and track worker meant that the wrong set of points was investigated the HSC would summarize this point there appears at this stage to have been a failure to recognize safety related defects in the setup and condition of points 2182a and to record or report them there were deficiencies in the response to a report of a rough ride in the area of the points south of Potter's bar station on the night before the derailment occurred the 9th of May 2002 thank you Mr Joo so the disaster was really just down to common issues unpreparedness of managers and staff to maintain and highlight issues within complex Machinery sadly this resulted in seven deaths not only that but it became the nail in the coffin for a rather controversial private company rail track which was in charge of Maintenance of signaling track and most of the UK stations in a post UK Railway privatization world you see rail track had subbed out nearly every job it could to contractors which resulted in substandard infrastructure as you know running a rail network assets for profit doesn't always get great results by the time the pobar disaster had happened rail track was actually in administration and a new publicly owned company called Network rail was to rise out of the ashes now the fines Network rail got hit with A3 million pound penalty a few years after the crash in 2010 Jarvis ra who originally posited that sabotage Theory ended up admitting liability setting aside £3 million itself for claims against the company Network rail moved towards reducing its contractor usage however we've seen more contractor staff on the railway recently which may be a worrying sign the disaster marked a low point in a bloody few years in the UK Railway industry but has become less well known compared to labrick Grove and sful but to me it is actually even more scary as the disaster didn't come from a driver error but a fundamental problem with maintenance now disaster scale time it's going to be a four for me and I've got this for my bingo cart do you agree this is a plenty of production all videos on the channel are created comms attribution share like licensed plenty of videos produced by me John in a currently very very cold corner of Southern London UK I have a second YouTube channel Instagram and Twitter or if you want to call it X so check that out for other bits and pieces I get up to and I'd like to say a very warm thank you to my patreon and YouTube members for your financial support as well as the rest of you for tuning in every week to watch these videos and all that's left to say is thank you for watching and Mr music play us out [Music] please [Music]

Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 420,568

Keywords: potters bar rail crash, disaster management, plainly difficult disaster video, train documentary, seconds from disaster, real footage strange but true, train disaster, uk history, qxir, fascinating horror, plainly difficult

Id: bon0wgivPoE

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024