British Railway Disasters – Hixon and Ladbroke Grove – Fraser Pithie

Our speaker for the meeting was Fraser Pithie whose presentation of British Railway Disasters included Hixon (6th January1968) and Ladbroke Grove (5th October 1999). The accident at Hixon formed the first half of the show and that at Ladbroke Grove the second.

The Hixon crash involved a Manchester to Euston express travelling at 75mph and a transporter carrying a 100 ton transformer over the level crossing. When the inevitable crash occurred the express hauled by Class 81 electric hit the transformer ‘head-on’ pushing it to the side of the up line by approximately 100 yds. The front end of the loco was completely crushed killing all three loco men (One of whom should have been ‘On the Cushions’). Eight passengers lost their lives and many more were injured. The conclusions reached as to the cause were varied and included issues relating to the timings allowed for the operation of the barriers rand resulted in changes to their operation and advance warning signs.

The accident at Ladbroke Grove involved train operations at Paddington station and was different in that there were issues with signalling, crossovers and alleged drive error in addition to fire. A Chiltern Class 165 unit bound for Bedwyn was crossing over the ‘Up’ main when it collided with a HST arriving at Paddington. As the collision occurred fuel tanks were dislodged causing an outbreak of fire and increased loss of life.

Both of the incidents discussed bought about much change. Those in charge started to listen to those on the ground and changes to procedures, signalling and infrastructure were later implemented. In his talk Fraser gave us an in depth view of events leading up to the collisions using detailed graphics and the changes implemented after the events.

We thanked Fraser for this excellent presentation.