Cannon Street station rail crash

The Cannon Street station rail crash was an accident on the British railway system which occurred on 8 January 1991 at Cannon Street station. The accident killed two people and injured 524 others^[1]. The 07:58 commuter train composed of elderly Class 415 and Class 416 units from Sevenoaks failed to stop at a dead end on Platform 3 and collided with a buffer stop at around 10 mph.^[2]

Inquiry

A report was compiled of the accident by Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate.^[3] No fault in the train's braking system could be found and the driver, Maurice Graham, was held to blame^[1]. He was not tested for drugs until three days after the accident, whereupon traces of cannabis were found in his system. The public inquiry found that there was insufficient evidence to suggest this had caused the accident.

The inquiry found that the cause of the accident was solely that of driver error. The report also made the following observations:

• The age of the elderly trains increased the effect of the impact. Of the two coaches that suffered the worst damage, one was built on an underbody dating from 1934, having been refitted with a new body in 1953 and involved in a previous collision with a locomotive in 1958; the other was built on an underframe from 1928.
• The interior design of the coaches' fittings and the large number of slam doors could have resulted in weaknesses in the structure of the rolling stock.
• More research is needed on the effect of impacts on passengers, particularly standing passengers, on board commuter trains.
• Automatic Train Protection, or ATP, should be installed as quickly as practicably possible.
• On-train data recorders would make the finding of evidence easier following railway accidents.
• Legislation should be introduced to make it an offence for railway staff with safety responsibilities to be intoxicated while on duty. (The main cause of the Eltham Well Hall rail crash).
• Sliding buffer stops might have minimised the injury compared to the hydraulic buffer stops in this incident.
• Arrangements for the booking-on of staff should be reviewed (a recommendation also made in the report for the Eltham Well Hall rail crash).

References

1. ^ ^{a b} BBC Article
2. ^ Event Summary, railwaysarchive.co.uk
3. ^ HMRI Report (PDF), from The Railways Archive

External links

• Accident at Cannon Street on 8 January 1991
• A Report of the Collision that occurred on 8 January 1991 at Cannon Street Station (1.1 MB)