Runaway train........a big one

[LC&DR]

My 'Run-Away' Story

I had just started my new job at Sheffield Midland and was being briefed by my new boss in his office on platform 2 at the London end. We heard a frantic and continuous tone on a train horn approaching, passing and going away, followed shortly after by a loud crash. We scrambled out of the office door on to the platform and at the country end of platform 2 we could see the rear of a diesel multiple unit and beyond it a huge cloud of smoke.

Running towards the train we discovered that the leading carriage was buried three quarters of the way inside the rear carriage of another DMU.

Fearing the worst we started to search the stock for casualties. But fortunately we couldn't find anybody in the wreckage, but lots of passengers were getting out of the doors of the rear carriage, most simply shaken although there were a few injuries mostly minor cuts and bruises. I seem to remember only 5 people needed to go to hospital. We found the driver, and my boss told me to look after him, so I took him back to out office and made a cup of tea. The Fire Service arrived and started to sort through the wreck and confirmed that there were no casualties remaining in either train.

The driver told me he had applied the brake coming down the bank from Dore and Totley but nothing happened, the train just kept gathering speed. He told the passengers in the leading carriage to move quickly to the rear of the train and stayed at his controls to sound the warning horn until he reached the end of the platform when he too ran back along the train as far as he could.

An empty two carriage DMU was waiting to leave platform 2 to go to the sidings, and there were no crew actually in it at the time, and no-one was standing near it on the platform.

The run-away was a three car class 124 / 125 'Inter City' DMMU which had just arrived back from Swindon after overhaul. These were regular trans Pennine units at the time.

The investigation found that the vacuum brake cylinders had been wrongly assembled in the works and although they gave a partial application it was not sufficient to stop the train on the gradient, which was long and steep.

If it hadn't been for the quick thinking and actions of the driver the casualty list would have been considerably greater,

[raetiamann]

When I was out there at the Ausrail exhibitions in 2011/13, I recall there was talk from Rio Tinto Zinc of this line being remote controlled and therefore driverless. As this issue seems to be down to human error, it may accelerate the driverless option for the company.

[Maz066]

I guess that depends on why the driver had to get out and inspect a wagon in the first place