Selby rail crash
Encyclopedia
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
accident that occurred at Great Heck
Great Heck
Great Heck is a small village that lies a few miles south of Selby, North Yorkshire, England.The village achieved notoriety due to the Great Heck rail crash.-External links:...
near Selby
Selby
Selby is a town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. Situated south of the city of York, along the course of the River Ouse, Selby is the largest and, with a population of 13,012, most populous settlement of the wider Selby local government district.Historically a part of the West Riding...
, North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
, England on the morning of 28 February 2001. 10 people were killed and 82 people suffered serious injuries.
Events
The crash occurred at approximately 06:13 (GMT), when a Land Rover Defender towing a loaded trailer (carrying a Renault Savanna estate car) swerved off the M62 motorwayM62 motorway
The M62 motorway is a west–east trans-Pennine motorway in Northern England, connecting the cities of Liverpool and Hull via Manchester and Leeds. The road also forms part of the unsigned Euroroutes E20 and E22...
just before a bridge over the East Coast Main Line
East Coast Main Line
The East Coast Main Line is a long electrified high-speed railway link between London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh...
. The vehicle ran down an embankment and onto the southbound railway track. The Land Rover's driver, Gary Neil Hart, tried to reverse it off the track, but he could not. While he was using a mobile telephone to call the emergency services after exiting the vehicle, the Land Rover was hit by a southbound GNER InterCity 225
InterCity 225
The InterCity 225 is a locomotive-hauled domestic train in the United Kingdom, comprising a Class 91 electric locomotive, nine Mark 4 coaches and a Driving Van Trailer...
heading from Newcastle
Newcastle Central station
Newcastle railway station , is the mainline station of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England and is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line. It opened in 1850 and is a Grade I listed building...
to London King's Cross at over 120 mph.
The InterCity 225 was propelled by a Class 91
British Rail Class 91
The British Rail Class 91 is a class of , electric locomotives ordered as a component of the East Coast Main Line modernisation and electrification programme of the late 1980s. The Class 91s were given the auxiliary name of InterCity 225 to indicate their envisaged top speed of...
locomotive (91023) and led by a Driving Van Trailer
Driving Van Trailer
A Driving Van Trailer is a purpose-built railway vehicle that allows the driver to operate a locomotive at the opposite end of a train. Trains operating with a DVT therefore do not require the locomotive to be moved around to the other end of the train at terminal stations...
(DVT) (82221). After striking the Land Rover, the leading bogie of the DVT derailed but the train stayed upright. However, points to nearby sidings deflected it into the path of an oncoming Freightliner freight train
Freight train
A freight train or goods train is a group of freight cars or goods wagons hauled by one or more locomotives on a railway, ultimately transporting cargo between two points as part of the logistics chain...
, running 20 minutes early (which was within the rules) and travelling from Immingham
Immingham
Immingham is a town in North East Lincolnshire, located on the south bank of the Humber Estuary...
to Ferrybridge
Ferrybridge
Ferrybridge is a village in West Yorkshire, England at a historically important crossing of the River Aire. It is linked to other communities by the A1, which follows the route of the Great North Road....
hauled by a Class 66
British Rail Class 66
The Class 66 is a six axle diesel electric freight locomotive developed in part from the British Rail Class 59, for use on the railways of the UK. Since its introduction the class has been successful and has been sold to British and other European railway companies...
(66521) locomotive. The two trains collided approximately half a mile (642 metres) from the impact with the Land Rover. The impact resulted in the near destruction of the lightweight DVT and severe to moderate damage to all nine of the InterCity 225's coaches, which mostly overturned and came to rest down an embankment to the east side of the track. The trailing locomotive remained upright and suffered minor damage, although it was derailed. The Class 66 freight locomotive overturned onto its left side, sustaining major damage to its cab area and right side, and the first nine wagons were derailed and damaged to varying extents.
Immediately before the impact of the two trains, the speed of the InterCity 225 was estimated as 88 mph and that of the freight train as 54 mph. With an estimated closing (combined) speed of 142 mph, the collision between the trains is the highest speed railway incident that has occurred in the UK.
Outcome
Both train drivers, two additional train crew on board the InterCity 225, and six passengers were killed. Survivors of the accident included a train-driving instructor (James Hill), who was travelling in the cab of 66521 and teaching a new route to the driver of the Class 66, a driver with 24 years of experience.Those killed were:
- John Weddle, from ThrockleyThrockleyThrockley is a village, located approximately 11 km west of Newcastle upon Tyne, in North East England. Hadrian's Wall passes through the village, its course traced by the village's main road, Hexham Road....
- GNER driver - Stephen Dunn, from Brayton - Freightliner driver
- Raymond Robson, from Whitley BayWhitley BayWhitley Bay is a town in North Tyneside, in Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the North Sea coast and has a fine stretch of golden sandy beach forming a bay stretching from St. Mary's Island in the north to Cullercoats in the south...
- GNER train guard - Paul Taylor, from NewcastleNewcastle upon TyneNewcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
- GNER chef - Alan Ensor, from YorkYorkYork is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
- Clive Vidgen, from York
- Barry Needham, from York
- Steve Baldwin, from York
- Christopher Terry, from York
- Robert Shakespeare, from Beverley
The coaches of the InterCity 225 were carrying 99 passengers and train staff. Had the train been closer to its total seated capacity of 544 passengers, the number of fatalities and serious injuries would have almost certainly been much higher. The early morning departure from Newcastle (4.45am) resulted in reduced passenger numbers. As it was, 45 of the 52 seriously injured passengers, and all 8 fatalities (excluding the two train drivers) were travelling in the first five coaches, which included a restaurant car and two first class coaches with less densely packed seating than standard coaches. The official incident report praised the crashworthiness of the InterCity 225's Mark 4
British Rail Mark 4
British Rail's fourth design of passenger carriages was designated Mark 4, designed for use in InterCity 225 sets on the newly-electrified East Coast Main Line between London, Leeds, and Edinburgh.-History and construction:...
coaches.
Hart escaped the collision unscathed. He claimed that his car had suffered a mechanical fault, or had collided with an object on the road. However, an investigation, including reconstruction of the Land Rover to demonstrate that it was not mechanically defective, concluded that Hart had been driving in a sleep-deprived
Sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation is the condition of not having enough sleep; it can be either chronic or acute. A chronic sleep-restricted state can cause fatigue, daytime sleepiness, clumsiness and weight loss or weight gain. It adversely affects the brain and cognitive function. Few studies have compared the...
condition, and had not applied the brakes as it went down the embankment. It later transpired that Hart had stayed up the previous night talking on the telephone to a woman he had met via an Internet dating agency.
Hart later stated that although he had witnessed the impact between the InterCity 225 and his Land Rover, he had not been aware of the more serious collision with the freight train until informed by police several hours later.
Coincidentally, 91023 was also involved in the Hatfield rail crash
Hatfield rail crash
The Hatfield rail crash was a railway accident on 17 October 2000, at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK. Although the accident killed fewer than other accidents, Hatfield exposed the major stewardship shortcomings of the privatised national railway infrastructure company Railtrack and the failings of...
some months earlier. The locomotive escaped with only slight damage on both occasions. Following technical upgrade of the Class 91 fleet, which led to all locomotives having 100 added to the number (91001 became 91101, etc.), 91023 was renumbered 91132, not 91123. Drivers Steve Dunn and Chris Swift, who was involved at Hatfield, had both previously worked at Birmingham New Street depot. 66521 was written off, despite only being a few months old at the time of the crash.
An unusual aspect of the emergency response was the need to carry out disinfecting procedures at the scene due to the foot and mouth epidemic
2001 UK foot and mouth crisis
The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom in 2001 caused a crisis in British agriculture and tourism. This epizootic saw 2,000 cases of the disease in farms in most of the British countryside. Over 10 million sheep and cattle were killed in an eventually successful attempt to...
in the UK at the time of the incident.
Aftermath
Hart was tried on ten counts of causing death by dangerous driving. On 13 December 2001 he was found guilty, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. He was released after serving half his sentence, for cooperation.Campaigners have drawn attention to what they claim is the inadequate length of the crash barriers alongside the road. According to the Health and Safety Executive
Health and Safety Executive
The Health and Safety Executive is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom. It is the body responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in England and Wales and Scotland...
's final report, the Land Rover had left the road some 24 metres before the barrier started, and had easily broken through the simple wooden fence that lined the track. A 2003 Highways Agency
Highways Agency
The Highways Agency is an executive agency, part of the Department for Transport in England. It has responsibility for managing the core road network in England...
review of crash barriers on bridges over railways concluded that only three bridges nationwide were in need of upgrading. The bridge at Great Heck was not one of them. Gary Hart attempted to sue the Department for Transport
Department for Transport
In the United Kingdom, the Department for Transport is the government department responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which are not devolved...
for a contribution to the damages he was liable to pay to GNER and the victims, on the grounds that the safety barrier was inadequate, but the case was dismissed.
Hart is supported by campaigner Scott Lomax
Scott Lomax
Scott Lomax is a campaigning journalist and true crime author who is particularly noted as having written about the case of the convicted murderer Jeremy Bamber and also about the innocence of Barry George who was acquitted of the murder of Jill Dando on 1 August 2008 after a retrial ordered by...
who argues that the Selby rail disaster was the culmination of many circumstances, with numerous factors of which Hart was only one. Lomax alleges that the disaster occurred due to a lack of safety measures which, had they been in place, would have prevented the accident.
66526 has since been named "Driver Steve Dunn (George)", in memory of the Freightliner driver killed in the accident. It carries a plaque commemorating the accident - "In remembrance of a dedicated engineman Driver Steve (George) Dunn tragically killed in the accident at Great Heck on 28th February 2001". In August 2009, the BBC News website reported that Dunn's son James - who was only nine at the time of the crash - was training to become a train driver and follow his father into the same trade. Reports about the tenth anniversary confirm that James Dunn is indeed now a driver like his father.
See also
- List of rail accidents in the United Kingdom
- Polmont rail crash - a similar accident where a train propelled from the rear by a locomotive struck an object on the railway.
- Hatfield rail crashHatfield rail crashThe Hatfield rail crash was a railway accident on 17 October 2000, at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK. Although the accident killed fewer than other accidents, Hatfield exposed the major stewardship shortcomings of the privatised national railway infrastructure company Railtrack and the failings of...
- an earlier accident also involving an InterCity 225 powered by 91023. - Oxshott rail crash - a concrete mixer lorry fell from a bridge onto a train.
External links
- BBC News reports on the crash and its aftermath
- Office of Rail Regulation - downloadable reports
- Highways Agency - crash report
- ONE life: Asleep at the Wheel at True North ProductionsTrue North ProductionsTrue North Productions is an independent British television production company based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. The company creates factual programmes and series in a wide variety of genres, including observational documentary, crime, current affairs, history, wildlife, food,...