Re: English Railway Accident

["Roy Wilke" <roywilke@notabitlikeanisp.net.au>]

"Rod [comtrain]" <freight_man@hotmail.com> wrote in message
3a9e41ea$0$25510$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au">news:3a9e41ea$0$25510$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au...
> Ian Jelf <ian@bluebadge.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> Zu4SBFBWAjn6EwYn@bluebadge.demon.co.uk">news:Zu4SBFBWAjn6EwYn@bluebadge.demon.co.uk...
> > In article <3A9E1454.7F401645@bigpond.com>, jjjim <jjjim@bigpond.com>
> > writes
> > >On the fottage on the news it appeard the barrier was quite short, and
I
> > >personally think there should be guard rails  (concrete) for  some
> distance
> > >before overpass. It should be mandatory.
> >
> > I've no idea what the standard for such matters *is* in the UK (there
> > must be one).   What about in Australia?
> > --
> > Ian Jelf        http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk
> > Birmingham, UK
> >         Registered "Blue Badge" Tourist Guide
> >         for the Heart of England and London
> >
> Strewth fellas!
> According to an interview on the radio today, by an eyewitness...
> The Rover was on a car trailer, and was not chained on!
> The towing vehicle braked suddenly on an icy road to avoid the stopping
cars
> ahead, and slid in beside the car he was about to rear end, hitting the
> railing quite hard, the Rover left the trailer, cleared the guard rails
down
> the bank, and was stopped by the ballast and track. This seems to stack up
> with the Channel 7 news report I watched tonite.
>
>From the images I've seen,
 ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1193000/1193939.stm  )
there are two vehicles. The one that is still on the trailer appears to be
similar in size to a
Nissan Pulsar, and looks like it's a mid-1980s model. The car that was
towing it had been
(before it got hit by a train) a LandRover "Defender" station wagon.

The BBC's report states that one theory is - considering that there are no
skid-marks and
also that the Landie's path was a straight one after it left the road - that
the driver may have
fallen asleep.

> Has anyone heard of "an act of GOD!"
>
> How unlucky can you be. Two trains, almost immediatly after the ACCIDENT,
> and even a call to 911, could not be passed on quickly enough to stop the
> trains!

A call to 911 would have been useless in the United Kingdom. I think you
mean "999"

> A more positive comment would be in this age of mobile phones, for the
> relevant owners of the tracks, to post prominent telephone numbers and a
> locality identification, at each overpass, so someone could notify the
> relevant Train Controller, immediatly, instead of piss farting around with
> Police etc Think how long it would have taken to get the message
> through....10 mins, 30 minutes...Would the Coppers know who to call. Did
the
> Guy on the bridge know where he was ,even
> Rod.

I don't think he was on the bridge when he phoned 999 (or 911 - or 000). But
I'd say
it would have been pretty certain that he knew which road he'd been driving
along when the
first accident happened. And in the circumstances that probably existed
yesterday morning near
Great Heck, a prominent sign on the roadway at the overpass would have been
useless. The driver
had just extricated himself from the LandRover at the level of the railway
tracks going *under* the
embankment. By the time he'd walked to the top of the embankment, found the
sign, and phoned the
relevant Train Controller: the collision, derailment and second collision
would most likely have already
happened.