Why did the Wickford recovery take longer than Harrow & Wealdstone in 1952?

Kentish RYS said:

Also possibly (and this is a guess) less information to collect by investigators?

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Back in 1952 the Harrow enquiry took place using information provided by British Railways staff thus there was no on site investigations by the railway inspectorate.

It may be only at the instigation of RAIB that formal site investigations by staff independent of the railway industry personnel took place. Thus at Wickford or any other incident you have to wait until RAIB on call inspector attends attends site they will then have to call upon other specialists potentially. Thus depending on complexity of investigation requirements a period of time elapses before the site is handed over to NR.

By comparison, the Willesden breakdown crane was on site at Harrow 30 minutes after the accident took place, but it was a vastly different railway back then of course.

I think, while it is true that there are lots of reasons why it takes much longer to recover from an incident such as this than it did in the past, the average passenger is only interested in when their train to work, college, friends family etc will operate normally again.

In most transport, things have improved over the last half century whereas this aspect (at least) of railway operations has significantly worsened.

In 1983 the Aberdeen/Inverness line was reopened in circa 36 hours after the Lhanbryde derailment which had a coach on its side and another derailed together with circa 1/4 mile of track damaged.

Newtraveller58 said:

I think, while it is true that there are lots of reasons why it takes much longer to recover from an incident such as this than it did in the past, the average passenger is only interested in when their train to work, college, friends family etc will operate normally again. In most transport, things have improved over the last half century whereas this aspect (at least) of railway operations has significantly worsened. In 1983 the Aberdeen/Inverness line was reopened in c36 hours after the Lhanbryde derailment which had a coach on its side and another derailed together with c 1/4 mile of track damaged.

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Back in the 80s and before, basically someone would appear on site, walk around and say the train derailed, right guys lets get on with the clear up.

Now you go the collection of every measurement known to man, did the driver sneeze at 3 or 4 of clock, where every passenger sat on the train etc. to come to basically the same conclusion.

It's the nature of the 21st century world when an accident happens (you only have to look at road accidents now and how long roads are closed for accident investigation work, no longer is the hitting of the oncoming car the reason for the accident).

Adrian1980uk said:

Back in the 80s and before, basically someone would appear on site, Walk around and say the train derailed, right guys lets get on with the clear up. Now you go the collection of every measurement known to man, did the driver sneeze at 3 or 4 of clock, where every passenger sat on the train etc. to come to basically the same conclusion. It's the nature of the 21st century world when an accident happens (you only have to look at road accidents now and how long roads are closed for accident investigation work, no longer is the hitting of the oncoming car the reason for the accident).

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And guess what? As a result we have fewer derailments in the first place, and thus less time lost to clearup.

Adrian1980uk said:

Back in the 80s and before, basically someone would appear on site, Walk around and say the train derailed, right guys lets get on with the clear up.

Now you go the collection of every measurement known to man, did the driver sneeze at 3 or 4 of clock, where every passenger sat on the train etc. to come to basically the same conclusion.

It's the nature of the 21st century world when an accident happens (you only have to look at road accidents now and how long roads are closed for accident investigation work, no longer is the hitting of the oncoming car the reason for the accident).

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There are so many things that are different - not least the enormous reduction in fatalities and serious injuries on both the roads and on the railway compared to the past.

It's all very well being nostalgic about the good old days when the philosophy was 'accidents will happen' and having established the immediate cause little effort was put into understanding why, but the number of lives saved by the modern approach cannot be dismissed, even if getting the balance right remains a challenge

apinnard said:

Nobody I’ve mentioned my railway enthusiast hobby to has ever referred to it as “cool,” so I’ll take that.

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Ah, but it is a really cool hobby. The history and the engineering etc. What got you into railways?

thedbdiboy said:

There are so many things that are different - not least the enormous reduction in fatalities and serious injuries on both the roads and on the railway compared to the past. It's all very well being nostalgic about the good old days when the philosophy was 'accidents will happen' and having established the immediate cause little effort was put into understanding why, but the number of lives saved by the modern approach cannot be dismissed, even if getting the balance right remains a challenge

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The other big difference is that historic investigations would usually slap the blame on one or more of the unfortunate individuals on the ground, without looking at why they came to be in that situation.

Nicholas Lewis said:

Back in 1952 the Harrow enquiry took place using information provided by British Railways staff thus there was no on site investigations by the railway inspectorate. It maybe only at the instigation of RAIB that formal site investigations by staff independent of the railway industry personnel took place. Thus at Wickford or any other incident you have to wait until RAIB on call inspector attends attends site they will then have to call upon other specialists potentially. Thus depending on complexity of investigation requirements a period of time elapses before the site is handed over to NR. By comparison the Willesden breakdown crane was on site at Harrow 30 minutes after the accident took place but it was a vastly different railway back then of course.

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In the Harrow incident (and Lewisham in 1957) the cranes were needed on site urgently to help lift carriages off each other to assist the release of trapped passengers, the carriages being far less 'crash-resistant' than modern rolling stock.

edwin_m said:

The other big difference is that historic investigations would usually slap the blame on one or more of the unfortunate individuals on the ground, without looking at why they came to be in that situation.

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The flip side of that was that they were not at risk of prosecution so could me more open about any errors they had made. And no crime scene was created requiring time for police investigations.

Are current ‘accidents’ routinely treated as Crime Scenes then?

(I am not including cases where there is a clear suspicion of line obstruction or sabotage.)

Dr Hoo said:

Are current ‘accidents’ routinely treated as Crime Scenes then?

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Not always, but often, yes.

After a serious incident, the Rail Incident Officer (RIO) (link to a previous topic on the RIO, see also this PDF on guidance to the emergency services) will take control of the site to coordinate the emergency services and preserve evidence.

Even if it's not treated as a crime scene and even if RAIB don't attend, Network Rail will normally conduct it's own investigation. That may include relevant TOC and/or ROC companies and personnel. Until the relevant functions and engineering disciplines have gathered the information that they want, no disturbance of the site to remove train(s), coaches, wagons, etc. or repair work to infrastructure is permitted.

Only when the RIO permits it can infrastructure repair work start. I've attended multiple derailments and incidents (including one where two engineering machines collided) and had to wait for permission before even being able to collect visual information (either as evidence or to help establishing what equipment has been damaged and will need to be replaced).

I suggest the simplest answer to the exam question is, ‘Because this isn’t 1952’.