The Croydon Tram Crash Disaster 2016 | Plainly Difficult Documentary

hello John here and this morning I'm at sanderlands in Croydon the location of a tragic disaster I used to travel through here quite a lot as a child and because of this this event has a personal place in my heart it's strange seeing somewhere you know so well being the scene for disaster well anyway that's enough of me John Let's Get over to John in the studio it is November 2016 and tragedy has fallen on London seven have died in a derailment on the Croydon tram Network it marks the first fatalities on a tram in the UK since 1959. the network represented a modern and reliable form of public transport for a previously neglected part of London recording Tran system is relatively new having only been running since the year 2000 but although apparently modern the accident would highlight the lack of Safety Systems and show that 16 years without a fatal disaster like this must have been a miracle welcome to plainly difficult my name is John and today we're looking at the Croydon tram disaster [Music] background our story starts here in New Addington which is around here on a map and a newly constructed post-war council state the town had been converted from Farmland to a residential area before the second World War the original plan was for a new Garden City out near the Surrey Hills four thousand four hundred houses a parade of shops two churches Cinema and a Village Green were originally envisioned but the major world war would interrupt the original plans the Warwood Hawk development in the area and would Herald the beginnings of its isolation from the rest of London post World War II London's housing landscape had changed significantly many more needed homes and with much of greater London being bomb damaged quick high density housing was needed and as such a tight-knit council state was constructed well the garden village ideal Society was pushed to the Wayside but for some 22 000 residents found themselves in one of the largest population centers in London without a Rail Link this led in the 1960s to a proposal to convert the West Croydon to Wimbledon line from a British Railway line to a Tramway as well as converting parts of the Woodside and Addison line the plans wouldn't gain too much traction excuse the pun until the late 1980s when the many small Branch lines around Croydon fell into decline British Rail was eager to offload these routes and converting portions of them into a light rail system offered a unique way for disposing of the unprofitable and sometimes unpopular sections of track this repurposing of British Rail infrastructure wasn't unique to Croydon however a similar project was well underway in Manchester which upon its opening in 1992 made use of two heavy rail Suburban lines and the time and where Metro had reused heavy rail infrastructure in the 1980s you see the late 1980s was a bit of a Revival for light rail Manchester was one but the DLR in East London was a big proof of concept well at least for the capital city but instead of the old singing and dancing automatic train operated network of the DLR Croydon would get a Tramway as such for Croydon tram link Act of 1994 resulted this gave the London Regional transport the predecessor to transport for London for power to build and run a tram link Network the Croydon tram Network would run Elmer's end to Croydon beckenham Junction to Croydon and new Addington to Wimbledon via Croydon now because of the use of the old with the new core route through Croydon the free South and Eastern destinations had to feed through sandalands along what used to be the old Woodside and South Croydon joint Railway alignment between coombe Road and Woodside but you may see an issue here when I show you on a map the Old Railway is along a straight line whereas Croydon is over here so how do we get trams from here or here to Croydon well this is where sand lands becomes important after the free tunnels heading north from the old coombe road station the line would take a sharp turn to the left if coming from new Addington or sharp turn to the right if coming from Beckham or Elmer's end but trams can handle sharp turns as they have a smaller loading gauge and have better suited wheel profile for turns this is given in sacrifice of top speed as such the network only had a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour or 50 miles an hour the tram link Network started operation in May 2000 and would turn out to be a vital method of Transport in the area helping to turn new Addington from a forgotten council state to commuting suburb of Croydon although in reality this was debatable I mean it definitely improved new addington's connections I remember as a child sitting on the top of the number 64 bus patiently riding through fieldway salesden South Croydon East Croydon and eventually electric house with my grandparents on an outing to Surrey Street Market now the trial Network relies on a method of working called drive on site which is pretty self-explanatory drivers don't have signaling like on the railway they should be able to stop short of any obstruction because trams aren't as heavy as trains they can stop within the available sighting distance so long as the tram has been driven at the correct speed for the area they can stop short of any other tram this is explained in the tram driver's rulebook a tram should be able to stop before a reasonably visible stationary obstruction ahead from the intended speed of operation using the service brake to assist with this principle of operation the line is given a speed depending on its characteristics of the section of track for example 80 kilometers an hour in a straight section between Woodside and coombe Road tunnels and 20 kilometers per hour around a tight curve at sandylands to tell the driver what speed to drive a speed board is provided the tram must be doing that speed before it passes the sign but the Tramway did have signals for points level Crossings and conflicting moves the point signals indicate how the points are set and the other two tell the driver when it's safe to proceed the Rolling Stock upon opening of the network was the Bombardier cr400 these multiple units 31 meter long and 2.65 meter wide trams have 70 seats and a total passenger capacity of just over 200 both seated and standing they are powered by 750 volts DC overhead power lines and have a top speed of 50 miles an hour or 80 kilometers an hour now because trams exist in a bit of a strange Middle Ground between Bus and Train they at least on the Croydon tram Network were not considered to need any type of protection system apart from the dead man's handle which puts on the emergency brake when there is no hand on it now this is problematic especially at say the sanderlands curve which essentially could act like a slingshot but for the most part tram-borne Safety Systems didn't seem to be an issue well until it was the disaster it is the morning of the 9th of November 2016. and tram2551 has just arrived at new Addington at 5 47 am the driver has six minutes to change ends and prepare the tram for its return Journey towards Croydon he has been on shift since 4 53 am having taken tram 2551 out of for apia Lane Depot and driving it in service towards new Addington all has been fine so far although early in the morning the driver would later report that he has slept well in the night at 5 53 am tram 2551 departed new Addington slowly making its way along the single line bitter track towards King Henry's Drive the tram for the next two stops down the hill towards Addington Village interchange was running to time down to Gravel Hill stop and up Gravel Hill itself was all as normal would a driver obeying the speed limits across the road crossing the tram left coombe lane tram stop a minute late but was easily recovered at Lloyd Park from here tram2551 would have to navigate a tight curve into the long straight through the three tunnels again the tramabate the speed restriction through the turn the journey through the free tunnels as one of the fastest sections of track on the route the driver upon reaching the 80 kilometers per hour board opened up accelerating down the line near the second tunnel Gap and traveling at about 79 kilometers an hour the tram was roughly 340 meters away from the left hand tight Corner into sanderlands usually the trams would begin to break here but this morning two five five one didn't some aboard the tram noticed the unusually high speed approaching the exit of the last tunnel the driver made a small brake application around 185 meters from the 20 kilometer an hour speed sign but the speed was barely reduced tram 2551 exited the tunnels into Heavy Rain traveling at a speed of about 78 kilometers an hour roughly 95 meters from the tight corner another brake application was made 57 meters from the speed restriction the tram went past the speed sign at 73 kilometers an hour or 45 miles an hour at 607 am as it slammed into the tight sandaland's left-hand curve the tram began to overturn onto its right hand side passengers were thrown against one another the momentum of the tram coming to a stop ejected around 34 of the occupants Through the tram's Windows and Doors butram had moved 27 meters from the place where it left the rails most of this distance was during the trams overturning were the remaining from the slide the tram was now battered and laying across the opposite track due to the severity of the shock to the electrical systems the passenger Saloon was in complete darkness passengers desperately tried to light up the cabin with their mobile phones and attempted to clamber out tram number 2554 had just a party sand lens heading towards the junction about 2551 had crashed into butram had lost power the driver contacted control who told him to walk towards the junction to investigate the driver of 2554 saw 2551 on its side by now some of the passengers had tried to escape via the left side doors now above their heads the driver of 2554 ran to 2551 and began attempting to cut a hole in the windscreen of the tipped over unit with some within also trying to escape through the windscreen after helping the crash tram's driver to offer service from the Metropolitan Police were the first emergency responders on the scene arriving at sanderland's tram stop at about 6 12 a.m they reported the situation to their control responders arrived from the London fire brigade British transport police and London Ambulance Service as well as more met police officers the fire service cut away parts of the tram including the windscreen and used specialist equipment to raise the tram out of the way the walking wounded were evacuated and the last surviving trapped passenger was freed from tram2551 at around 8 16 in the morning seven passengers were fatally injured during the accident 19 suffered serious injuries and 42 received minor injuries within an hour the rail accident investigation board the UK's rail version of the NTSB had arrived and began collecting evidence obviously the question was how did the tram end up here well the investigation would find some very worrying points the investigation the raib reviews the on-tran data recorder and saw the worrying lack of control inputs from the driver investigation of tram2551 found it was indeed working how it should be which led investigators to suspect the driver as the cause of the crash it was quickly apparent that the crash wasn't a case of attempted suicide and drugs tests excluded any substance abuse to be a causal factor a medical examination also ruled out seizure or blackout which really left only one human factor loss of concentration investigators thought that a temporary loss of awareness of the driving task during a period of low workload was the cause which was possibly caused by micro sleep they thought this was a reason for the apparent non-reaction of the driver as the tram approached the sandaland's curve the raib would summarize the cause in its report although some doubt remains as to the reasons for the driver not applying sufficient braking the raib has concluded that the most likely cause was a temporary loss of awareness of the driving task during a period of low workload which possibly caused him to micro sleep it is also possible that when regaining awareness the driver became confused about his location and direction of travel but although the driver was the initiating event a serious question was raised as to how there was no safety system in place to prevent this the Tramway was pretty modern after all how was it just down to one individual to ensure safety of the passengers well the investigation would delve into this and show a pretty worrying lack of awareness of the dangers of such a tight curve the raib discovered that the speedboard was placed too close to the curve leaving little time to react if a driver had lost situational awareness no form of train protection was in effect on a network like what is employed on the mainline for example tpws which would be provided for such tight curves and a drastic reduction in speed even on the underground tripcock train stop protection is provided to stop a train if traveling too fast although this is usually used in the form of approach controlled signals earlier Light Rail systems had been built with Protection Systems in mind such as the tynanware metro in the 1980s as well as the DLR it seemed that to all concerned the risks that were apparent for heavy rail wouldn't appear on a tramlink system in the aftermath of the accidents and the raib's investigation the Croydon trans system would receive various safety improvements such as lowering of the maximum speed from 80 kilometers an hour to 70 kilometers now roughly 45 miles an hour although the raib determined that a check rail wouldn't have prevented the disaster I personally think there should be one there have improvements to the network would result in the installation of chevron's tight curves like what you see on the road and a driver awareness system that employs a camera to scan the tram operator's face if it notices a micro sleep then the driver's seat would vibrate and an audible warning would sound eventually in 2018 an overspeed system would be installed at high risk locations that would intervene in the case of a tram exceeding a safe speed the raib was pretty damning of the cr400 Rolling Stock as its toughened glass windows were not strong enough to contain passengers in the case of a rollover it was also highlighted that the only way of egress from the tram was through smashing the windscreen roster planning was investigated by the tram operators to improve the risk of fatigue issues unfortunately it is an issue with shift work and the roster did follow Lord hidden's working rules implemented after the Clapham disaster This Disaster highlighted the lack of safety systems on the third most popular method of rail transport in the UK eventually improvements were made to the network but the event shows just how lucky passengers have been in the 16 years before the sandylands accident the trams have always had a special place in my heart due to seeing a network being built in the late 1990s and the tragedy at sandlands just shows that you need more than just one person to ensure safety which is pretty similar to the 2017 Washington disaster you always need the safety system as a backup for when things go wrong this is a plain difficult production all videos on the channel are Creative Commons attribution share like licensed playing difficult videos are produced by me John in a currently wet corner of Southern London UK I'd like to thank my patrons and YouTube members for your financial support and if you're enjoying this outro song you can check it out on my second Channel which is made by John I've got Twitter and I also now have Instagram so you can check them out for photographs and hints on future videos and all that's left to say is Mr music play us out please [Music]

Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 534,080

Keywords: plainly difficult disaster, plainly difficult documentary, croydon tram crash, London history, croydon tram disaster, railway disaster, disaster documentary, Croydon tram, tram crash

Id: vRowHhbHab0

Length: 18min 59sec (1139 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 08 2022