In the early evening of 8 August 1996, a passenger train operated by

Network SouthEast Network SouthEast (NSE) was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE mainly operated commuter rail trains within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the net ...

travelling from

London Euston Euston railway station ( ; also known as London Euston) is a central London railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, managed by Network Rail. It is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line, the UK's busiest inter-city rail ...

on the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

''Down Slow line'' at around 110 km/h (68 mph)

passed a signal at danger A signal passed at danger (SPAD), known in the United States as a stop signal overrun and in Canada as passing a stop signal, is an event on a railway where a train passes a stop signal without authority. In the United States and Canada, this ...

. Having applied the brakes it eventually stopped 203 m (222 yards) past the signal and was traversing the junction between the ''Down Slow line'' and the ''Up Fast line''. An empty Class 321 coaching stock train approaching at roughly 80 km/h (50 mph) collided with the stationary passenger train approximately 700 m south of

Watford Junction Watford Junction is a railway station that serves Watford, Hertfordshire. The station is on the West Coast Main Line (WCML), 17 miles 34 chains from London Euston and the Abbey Line, a branch line to St Albans. Journeys to London take between 16 ...

whilst progressing across the connections from the ''Up Slow line'' to the ''Up Fast line''. One person was killed and sixty-nine were injured, including four members of the train's crew. The person who was killed was Ruth Holland, book review editor of the '' British Medical Journal''.

Criminal proceedings

As a result of this accident, the train driver was charged with manslaughter by the

Crown Prosecution Service The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal advi ...

on 10 January 1997, following an investigation by the

British Transport Police , nativename = , abbreviation = BTP , patch = , patchcaption = , logo = British Transport Police Logo.svg , logocaption = Logo of the British Transport Police , badge = , badgecaption = , f ...

. On 11 March 1998, the driver was

acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as criminal law is concerned. The finality of an acquittal is dependent on the jurisdiction. In some countries, such as the ...

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable a ...

Crown Court. In its report, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) advised that there was insufficient evidence to justify legal proceedings against the other involved parties, namely

Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...

and

Incident report

Following delays caused by the criminal proceedings against the driver, the HSE and the

Office of Rail Regulation The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the economic and safety regulation of Britain's railways, and the economic monitoring of National Highways. ORR regulates Network Rail by setting it ...

jointly published its ''Report into the railway accident at Watford South Junction on 8 August 1996'' on 29 April 1998, a summary version was published on the internet on 21 May 1998.

Contributing factors

The HSE and ORR concluded in its incident report that there were a number of mitigating factors that contributed to the incident. # The collision would have been avoided if the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system had been fitted to the train and track. # The inappropriate positioning of a speed restriction sign as a result of imprecise wording in the Railway Signalling Standard which gave confusing information to the driver of the passenger train. # The signal passed at danger had a shorter than normal safety margin known as an '

overlap Overlap may refer to: * In set theory, an overlap of elements shared between sets is called an intersection, as in a Venn diagram. * In music theory, overlap is a synonym for reinterpretation of a chord at the boundary of two musical phrases * O ...

' intended to reduce risks from small misjudgements by train drivers or increased braking distances (e.g. as a result of wet leaves on the line).

Criminal proceedings

Incident report

Contributing factors

See also

References

Further reading