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Incident between Wigan Wallgate and Southport (29th August 2026)

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styles

styles

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gray1404 said:
I think the driver of the supermarket delivery van failed to realise it was a railway crossing (I'm assuming the gates were left open as it's impossible to mistake otherwise) and proceeded without seeing the train or realising they were about to go over train track. Either that or they thought because the gates were open it was safe to proceed and didn't see the approaching train.
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RiponHall said:
Before coming to a conclusion like that, I would want to know that the delivery driver had never made a delivery to that site before. One of the crossings that I was responsible suffered from frequent misuse - with delivery and other 'professional' drivers being the most frequent culprits. Eventually, after several very near misses, the crossing was upgraded to be a AOCL. It was after that when one of these drivers got caught out by a train that he could not outrun. That driver had used the crossing almost daily...
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Thankfully we probably won't need any such speculation because Asda delivery vans have forward-facing dashcams as standard, so unless the camera wasn't working, it should be easily visible what the situation was on approach.
 
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TrainOnLine

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Off topic slightly but is there a reason why Astley was never converted to an MCB. if so, would it remove the 40/60 speed restriction?
 
Cowley

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I think until we have some more information it’s going to be best to put a pause on things here.

There’s a new thread below to discuss some of the issues that were being discussed though

What can be done to improve the safety of user worked crossings?

I have taken photos at Astley several times, and whilst users are supposed to close the gates after crossing. However, perhaps 5-10% are too lazy to close the gates, and the signalman has to come out of the box to close the gates. At the incident site, there are no staff to close the gates...
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