710112 collision with Buffers at Liverpool Street Station (15/10/2026)

[mr_moo]

It is a sad indictment of modern thinking that any railway accident has to be treated as a crime scene. Learn lessons, yes, but don’t automatically assume criminality, please.

Quite. They didn't tell me to delete the photo or anything but just started saying 'no no no' and getting huffy. Oh well.

 

[Aaron_TTL]

Likely due to a possession

Sounds about right, the usual 5T44 in the schedules is Chingford to Chingford sidings

 

[mr_moo]

You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get a tripod camera into my pram.

 

[greatkingrat]

It is a sad indictment of modern thinking that any railway accident has to be treated as a crime scene. Learn lessons, yes, but don’t automatically assume criminality, please.

Just because some random member of platform staff said it was a crime scene doesn't mean it actually was. If BTP/RAIB were still investigating the scene, the P-Way staff wouldn't have been able to start rerailing the unit.

 

[mpthomson]

It is a sad indictment of modern thinking that any railway accident has to be treated as a crime scene. Learn lessons, yes, but don’t automatically assume criminality, please.

It's no different from any other workplace incident that may need to be investigated by a regulatory body and/or the police, scenes are considered potential crime scenes until it becomes obvious that they aren't. It's to ensure that all evidence is preserved and gathered without people removing it, trashing it or walking through it, whether accidentally or deliberately as far as possible. It's not an assumption that something criminal has happened.

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

It is a sad indictment of modern thinking that any railway accident has to be treated as a crime scene. Learn lessons, yes, but don’t automatically assume criminality, please.

In the strictest sense it is until it's investigated. Only once it's cleared by those relevant rail workers can get to work.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's okay to take photos of "crime scenes" by the way. What you can't do is disturb them. The fact they'd obviously started rerailing the train and moved it away from the site of impact would tell me it wasn't a crime scene anyway.

 

[Dave W]

A photo from another angle suggests the person may have been facing the other way and not aware of what was about to happen.

Reasonable - you certainly can't tell from the footage quality.

 

[physics34]

It is a sad indictment of modern thinking that any railway accident has to be treated as a crime scene. Learn lessons, yes, but don’t automatically assume criminality, please.

This also happened during recent London Bridge buffer stop collision. As they are probably first on scene they seem to take up the 'reigns' if you like. If its out on track somewhere, MoMs and network rail tend to be first responders barring the paramedics.

 

[saismee]

Quite. They didn't tell me to delete the photo or anything but just started saying 'no no no' and getting huffy. Oh well.

At least they accepted that you were within your right to photograph it. Understandably displeased as the barrier was meant to extend down the whole platform to make the area inaccessible.

 

[norbitonflyer]

It is a sad indictment of modern thinking that any railway accident has to be treated as a crime scene. Learn lessons, yes, but don’t automatically assume criminality, please.

It's been like that for a while. There was an incident (a derailment I think) in the Motherwell area some years ago where the police insisted on interviewing all the passengers and detained the driver (unlikely to be culpable in any way) before allowing them to go on their way. And others where the RAIB were not allowed to get to the scene before cricial evidence such as brake pressure had deteriorated.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It is a sad indictment of modern thinking that any railway accident has to be treated as a crime scene. Learn lessons, yes, but don’t automatically assume criminality, please.

The last Overground buffer crash- at Enfield- was due to a driver who had taken cocaine before clocking on. He was jailed for it.

Even if there isn’t criminality, it’s always better to work on the assumption that a scene needs to be preserved for evidence. If the driver hasn’t done anything wrong it will clear them more quickly.

 

[mr_moo]

Agreed, but there's no reason you shouldn't be able to take a photo of something in a mostly public area, even if it is deemed "a crime scene". And also, surely, if it were genuinely still being treated as a crime scene that needed protection, why had the train been moved back and why was it being re-railed? Either it's a crime scene where evidence is being preserved, or it's a recovery scene that's been handed back to NR.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

With ETCS, buffer stops are generally planned using release speeds. In our case, when the system was first introduced, the release speed was 15 km/h approximately 150 meters before the buffer stop. This has since been adjusted to approximately 20 meters, as the very restrictive application of the system had extended the travel time by about 40 seconds. Neither of the two options would prevent a collision as long as the speed remains below 15 km/h.

I wonder if the over restrictive driving required coming into terminal platforms gives the opportunity for a driver to become distracted?

 

[dk1]

Not my photo!

Are you sure?

 

[Falcon1200]

There was an incident (a derailment I think) in the Motherwell area some years ago where the police insisted on interviewing all the passengers and detained the driver (unlikely to be culpable in any way) before allowing them to go on their way.

Mossend on 15th November 2000 perhaps? This was however just over a month after Hatfield, which might explain the Police actions.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Mossend on 15th November 2000 perhaps? This was however just over a month after Hatfield, which might explain the Police actions.

Yes, that was a very long time ago now. The statutory arrangements for accident investigation, standards setting and regulatory enforcement are totally different these days.

 

[wanderingriver]

Just gone onto Instagram and it seems the London Standard newspaper has posted the leaked cab footage on Instagram. I think it won’t be long till other news outlets will probably share it too

 

[Bald Rick]

Just gone onto Instagram and it seems the London Standard newspaper has posted the leaked cab footage on Instagram. I think it won’t be long till other news outlets will probably share it too

As a marker of the world we live in, Mrs BR has sent the clip to me, before I have seen it from official sources.

 

[Roylang]

Mossend on 15th November 2000 perhaps? This was however just over a month after Hatfield, which might explain the Police actions.

I took a photo of a DMU that ran through the buffers on the centre road at Reading in the late 80s. Got the same reaction back then, nothing has really changed.

Roy

 

[notverydeep]

The video enables us to estimate the average speed during the approach. Looking at the 710 on the adjacent platform (and assuming the angle from the camera remains basically constant), it takes about 14 seconds to cover the distance between just past the country end door of the first visible car (the third from the buffers) to the London end cab. This is likely around 55 metres, giving a speed of around 14 km/h or 8.8 mph average up to just before the collision…

 

[Dave W]

As a marker of the world we live in, Mrs BR has sent the clip to me, before I have seen it from official sources.

I'm just an enthusiast so I presume Mrs DW is less engaged than Mrs BR, given she's married to an industry professional, but she's still out paced me on all of the recent major incidents.

News, and consumption of it, has changed.

 

[Bald Rick]

I'm just an enthusiast so I presume Mrs DW is less engaged than Mrs BR, given she's married to an industry professional, but she's still out paced me on all of the recent major incidents.

News, and consumption of it, has changed.

You will struggle to find an individual less interested in the rail industry than Mrs BR. Except when she wants to know why her train is late RIGHT NOW!!!!

 

[Elecman]

You will struggle to find an individual less interested in the rail industry than Mrs BR. Except when she wants to know why her train is late RIGHT NOW!!!!

Give her the relevant Control phone number

 

[Harpo]

Are you sure?

 

[Dave W]

You will struggle to find an individual less interested in the rail industry than Mrs BR. Except when she wants to know why her train is late RIGHT NOW!!!!

Mine is equally dispassionate until she gets PF'd and she wants me to "ask that forum you're on"

 

[Bigfoot]

TPWS on the approach to buffer stops are usually set for 10mph or 12.5mph depending on location. There is no differentiation between passenger and freight (Albeit freight rarely approaches bufferstops on passenger signalled lines).

The speed is set by the distance between the grids and the timer set by the tpws unit on the train. Passenger and freight have different time settings.

 

[Bald Rick]

The speed is set by the distance between the grids and the timer set by the tpws unit on the train. Passenger and freight have different time settings.

Not on my signalling drawings they don’t, but happy to be wrong!

 

[Watershed]

Not on my signalling drawings they don’t, but happy to be wrong!

The physical distance between the grids is of course the same no matter what, but the timer is set differently for passenger vs freight trains, such that the TPWS will trigger an intervention at a lower speed on freight.

 

[172007]

Not on my signalling drawings they don’t, but happy to be wrong!

Happy to be corrected but Class 67s have a switch to change over from freight to passenger for the TPWS timer in the cab.

There was a passenger train that overspeeded the pernament speed restriction on the ECML in a RAIB report nearly a decade ago. It didnt trigger OSS grids as the distance of the grids was set for freight and took into account freights lower trigger speed so for passenger was something like 10 mph over the permanent speed restriction. My memory is a little hazzy on the exact details.