Hixon rail crash
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Details | |
|---|---|
| Date and time: | 6 January 1968 12:26 |
| Location: | Hixon, Staffordshire, England |
| Rail line: | West Coast Main Line |
| Cause: | Road vehicle obstruction |
| Statistics | |
| Trains: | 1 |
| Passengers: | ~300 |
| Deaths: | 11 |
| Injuries: | 45 |
| List of UK rail accidents by year | |
The Hixon rail crash occurred on 6 January 1968 when a truck carrying a 120-ton electrical transformer was struck by an express train on a level crossing at Hixon, Staffordshire.
Contents |
[edit] Background
In the 1950s, British Railways was looking to reduce the considerable cost of manning some 2,400 level crossings. Following a fact-finding trip to Europe in 1956, it was decided that automatically operated crossings with half-barriers would give considerable cost savings, and would also speed up the flow of road traffic. Safety requirements were drawn up and the first automatic crossing in Britain was installed at Spath, Staffordshire, in 1961.
By January 1968, there were 207 automatic crossings including the one at Hixon, which had been converted to automatic half-barrier operation in July 1967.
[edit] The accident
On 6 January, a 120-ton electrical transformer was to be moved from the English Electric works at Stafford to a storage depot on the disused airfield at Hixon. To carry out this move a huge transporter vehicle, 148 feet long and with a 32-wheeled trailer, was chartered. It had a gross weight of 162 tons, was impelled by a tractor unit at each end, and had a crew of five.
The transporter left Stafford at approximately 09:30. Being a large and heavy load it had a police escort. Although Hixon was only six miles from Stafford, the nature of the load meant that it needed to travel south out of the town and then north via the M6, the A34 to Stone and finally the A51 to Hixon. This route had been approved by the Ministry of Transport, but the map of the route made no mention of the level crossing at Hixon.
At around 12:20 the transporter turned off the A51 into Station Road and slowed to walking pace as it approached the crossing. The trailer needed to be raised by the crew in order to negotiate the track but, in addition, it needed to be low enough to clear the catenary wires.
At 12:26, with the transporter approximately halfway over the crossing, the warning lights began to flash and the barrier descended onto the trailer. Barely 30 seconds later, the transporter's crew looked on in horror as the 11:30 express train from Manchester to Euston approached at approximately 75 mph. They bravely tried to accelerate the transporter off the track, but in vain. The train hit the transporter squarely in the middle and eleven people (8 passengers and 3 railwaymen) were killed. 45 were injured, six of them seriously.
[edit] Investigation
The circumstances of the accident, and the subsequent public reaction, led to an Order being made on 16 January for a public inquiry under Section 7 of the Railways Act 1871. The findings of this enquiry would be presented to Parliament by the Minister for Transport. This was the first Section 7 inquiry since the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879.
The inquiry identified the directors of the haulage company, Robert Wynn and Sons Ltd, as being chiefly to blame. It transpired that, in November 1966, one of their transporters had narrowly avoided disaster when it became grounded on an automatic crossing at Leominster. Wynns had pointed out their concern at the short warning time given in a letter to British Railways, but received a terse reply, and therefore did not press the matter further. No instructions regarding automatic crossings had ever been given to their drivers, and at Hixon the driver assumed that it was safe to cross because the police car had already done so.
In addition, neither of the police officers who were escorting the load had been to Hixon before. They had both been posted to traffic duties in the Stone Division five days earlier and they were unaware of the presence of a main railway line, along with the comparitively short warning time that the crossing gave.
Both British Railways and the Ministry of Transport also received criticism for their lack of foresight and failure to adequately point out that drivers of slow or heavy loads were required to use the telephone provided before crossing the line. There was a warning notice at Hixon crossing to this effect, but it was almost impossible to read from a passing vehicle. Following this accident the requirements for telephones at automatic crossings were increased greatly and their position and signage improved.
[edit] References
- Nock, O.S.; Cooper, B.K. (1987). Historic Railway Disasters (Fourth Edition). Ian Allan. ISBN 0-71-101752-2.
- Ministry of Transport; W. Patrick Jackson (1968). Report of the Public Inquiry into the Accident at Hixon Level Crossing on January 6th, 1968. HMSO. ISBN 0-10-137060-1.
[edit] External links
- Staffordshire Past Track - an illustrated page about the crash
- Level crossing telephones - an illustrated page by a British Rail engineer involved in the development of these telephones
