The 1996 Stafford rail crash occurred on 8 March 1996 when a Transrail freight train travelling from

Mossend Mossend is a small town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, located on the A775 road to the immediate east of its 'sister town' Bellshill, west of the villages of Holytown and New Stevenston, north of the larger town of Motherwell and south of the E ...

, North Lanarkshire, to Willesden, North London, derailed after an axle on a wagon carrying liquid

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is t ...

failed due to fatigue at Rickerscote south of

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in th ...

on the West Coast Main Line. Almost immediately after the derailment, a Travelling Post Office mail train hauled by a Rail Express Systems British Rail Class 86

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or g ...

(no 86239) collided with a section of the derailed freight train on the adjacent line and fouled the path of the TPO mail train. One person, a mail sorter, was killed in the crash and twenty others including the driver of the mail train were injured. The cause of the collision was the failure of an axle on one of the tanker wagons of the freight train. It caused the wagon and adjacent ones to

derail A derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling (blocking or compromising) of a rail track (or collision with anything present on the track, such as a person, or a train) by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock. ...

, into the path of the closely approaching mail train, which was travelling at . The driver of the mail train had no time to brake and the force of the collision spun the locomotive around and catapulted it up the embankment, where it came to rest against the end wall of a house. The liquid

formed into a gas as it was no longer under pressure and interfered with the rescue effort. One bystander who had gone to help was later found unconscious after suffering the inhalation effects of carbon dioxide. The rescue services were on the scene within four minutes of being notified, despite the signaller at Stafford having to relay the emergency information via another office because the crash had cut his external phone lines, but he was able to phone his supervisor at

Crewe Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The Crewe built-up area had a total population of 75,556 in 2011, which also covers parts of the adjacent civil parishes of Willaston ...

. The fire service on site were given the wrong staffing list for the mail train - they had been given a manifest for the number of mail workers who would have been on the train northbound after leaving Crewe. However, the ambulance service were given a correct head count list from the Royal Mail workers at the lineside. During the investigation, it was discovered that the wagon had travelled since its last inspection. The recommendation at the time was that wagons were tested every .

References

External links

Copy of HSE investigation report
Railway accidents and incidents in Staffordshire Railway accidents in 1996 1996 in England Stafford 1990s in Staffordshire Derailments in England Train collisions in England {{England-rail-transport-stub

See also

References

External links