Track lights urged after Gwynedd woman's death

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

A rail accident investigation into the death of a Gwynedd pensioner at a crossing in 2009 says miniature warning lights could reduce the risk of a future accident.
The car being driven by Sally Hudson, 83, was hit by a train close to her Penrhyndeudraeth home.
Following the accident, the risk level to crossing users at the site has been increased.
Network Rail says it will now review the findings of the report.
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch)) launched its review of safety at the level crossing in the days following the death of Mrs Hudson.
She died when her Fiat Punto car was struck and shunted down the track by a 105-tonne single locomotive, which was being used to familiarise train drivers on the Cambrian Coast Line.
A later inquest heard that there was a telephone stationed at the crossing, which was supposed to be used before anyone ventured onto the line.
However, the RAIB investigation found that the phone had not been used since August 17 that year, and had not been used by Mrs Hudson on the day she died.
An inquest into her death found that she may have been "too familiar" with using the crossing for almost every day for 40 years.
The RAIB report echoed this, adding: "It therefore appears that Mrs Hudson decided to cross the line on the basis of visual sighting alone, perhaps supported by her prior knowledge of the train timetable, which may have led her to believe there would not be another train approaching until about 1210.
"It is unlikely that she would have been aware of the driver route familiarisation runs by single locomotives."
The report said that because of the layout of the rail line and signalling operators, anyone using the telephone line to discover if it was safe to cross could be told to wait up to 20 minutes.
The investigators warned that this could "encourage the user to cross without using the telephone", as happened in Mrs Hudson's case.
Another option to reduce dangers at the crossing could be the use of miniature warning stop lights (MWLs), said the report.
It stated: "While there are costs and some disadvantages of MWLs compared to telephones at a crossing such as Penrhyndeudraeth, the advantages from the users point of view are:
- They provide a visual warning to a crossing user of an approaching train;
- They make it unnecessary for a crossing user to make a telephone call to the signaller; and
- Because the red light is triggered by the train itself, the period during which a user is warned against using the crossing is relatively short.
"For these reasons, it might be expected that the provision of MWLs would reduce the risk at Penrhyndeudraeth user worked crossing."
However, Network Rail rejected putting the warning system in place following the crash after running a risk assessment based on a generic computer model.
But the RAIB said the result of that assessment was "counter-intuitive and apparently incorrect".
It added: "Network Rail's post-accident assessment did not take into account the circumstances of the accident on 2 September 2009, nor did it take into account the other factors at the crossing which might have increased the risk above the average for all such crossings."
Responding to the report, a spokesperson for Network Rail said: "Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Mrs Sally Hudson. We have been working very closely with the police and RAIB since the tragic incident to support their investigation and have also taken extra steps, including improving signs at the crossing. We welcome the report from RAIB today and will review the recommendations put forward."

[JayMac]

Not wishing to speak too ill of the dead here, but my reading of the situation is that this driver let complacency rule the decision she made to use the crossing. There was a perfectly adequate system in place (the telephone) for motorists to use to ensure it was safe to cross.

Now it looks like the rail network will have to bear additional costs, as this crossing's risk level has been increased because of driver misuse.

[Chris from Nailsea]

By the way, the RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) bulletin is available on their website.

[dking]

Now that LEDs are getting brighter and cheaper could not some enterprising manufacturer develop sets of flashing lights (like a miniature spaceship from 'Close Encounters'!) that would be unmissable and unmistakeable as warnings? Cheaper than footbridges or even crossing barriers, I would have thought. We can't (and nor should we) entirely H&S^▸ (Health and Safety) away the responsibility from the person crossing but it should be possible to warn them more effectively.

[inspector_blakey]

Miniature warning lights, where fitted, are placed so that they are conspicuous and bright. The issue is not one of the visibility of the warning, the issue is that people will still ignore it if they think it's OK to do so.

Having read the bulletin, I have to say that the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) article rather overstates its conclusions - miniature warning lights are suggested as a possible improvement in safety at the crossing, but they are not required and the lack of them does not come in for serious criticism. In this case they may well be a good solution: the crossing as it was at the time of the accident had a notice requiring those crossing with vehicles to use the telephone (which was in perfect working order) to call the signaller and ask whether it was safe to cross. However, the nature of the signalling on the Cambrian line as it was then, with long single-line sections, means that is was difficult for the signaller to give a precise answer, which could result in the motorist having to wait for up to twenty minutes. All the signaller could do would be to answer in the negative if there was a train anywhere within the relevant single line section, even though it may have already passed the crossing.

I don't know how ERTMS^▸ (European Rail Traffic Management System.) signalling on the Cambrian is likely to impact on this situation, if at all. Miniature warning lights would be an improvement since they are activated automatically by the passage of trains, presumably using treadles on the track, and so will only show red when there really is a train approaching.

Despite my ramblings above though, the bottom line in this case is that the motorist, however "understandably", did not use the crossing correctly which turned out to be a tragic mistake on the day in question.