Southall rail disaster due to
privatisation and cost cutting

By Paul Stuart

The Southall rail crash, which left seven dead and 176 injured, is the tragic result of the blatant disregard of safety by the private rail operators. The crash occurred on Friday, September 19, when a packed train from Cardiff to Paddington travelling at 110 mph crashed into the side of an empty freight train shunting at slow speed across a high speed track. The engine burst into flames and carriages were flung from the track. Passengers suffering with serious injuries were trapped in the wreckage for hours.

The driver -- who has 30 years in the industry -- was immediately detained by the Transport Police, which is funded by the private network operator, Railtrack. He passed a breathalyser test and was taken for interviewing at Southall Police station. The driver of the goods train was also questioned but was quickly released.

This began a concerted campaign to shift blame onto driver negligence and a possible manslaughter charge. Lurid newspaper editorials intimated that the driver must have jumped a red signal or ignored safety procedures. Advertisements were placed offering a reward for any dirt on the driver, who has been forced into hiding.

Dangers were known

The dangers of such a crash occurring were well-known. The express train was one of a handful fitted with an Automatic Train Protection device (ATP), a sophisticated computer system which automatically prevents a driver going through red signals by overriding driver control. Great Western, the private franchise operator for the service, was unable to say whether it was switched on or not!

Privatisation has fractured the rail network and handed it over to operators seeking to increase competition by cutting costs and manning levels. There have been nearly 100,000 redundancies since 1988. Stanley Robertson, Chief Inspector of railways, warned, "I am very worried about the dangers posed by amateurs taking over the railways. New owners will be in it for profit. They could cut corners and when there's an accident blame some other new owner."

Great Western won the first InterCity franchise in December 1995. Seen as the flagship of the 25 private operators, it has been criticised for unreliability due to a lot of its stock being 25 years old. The freight train is jointly owned by the quarrying company ARC Southern, a subsidiary of Hanson PLC, and English, Welsh and Scottish railways (EWS), the largest freight operator. EWS chairman, Ed Burkhardt, recently wrote to his own employees voicing concerns about rail safety because of poor radio communications, ageing stock and poor maintenance. Four people were hurt in February when an EWS train plunged down the embankment at Bexley in Kent.

The other major disaster since privatisation was the Watford Junction crash in August 1996, where one person was killed and 68 injured when two trains collided. Again this was due to the absence of an ATP device.

Full implementation of ATP had been repeatedly delayed by Railtrack and Great Western. Richard Hope, a former parliamentary advisor and consultant editor of Railway Gazette, said, "Railtrack has made at least two commitments to bring the pilot scheme into service since 1995 but it has been endlessly delayed... Great Western is concerned that if they bring it in and it fails, they will have to take the trains out of service."

The less sophisticated Advance Warning System (AWP) presently in operation on the Bristol-Paddington line does not stop the train, but triggers a hooter in the cab if a red signal is passed (at 110-125 mph!). There were 700 instances last year throughout the rail network of passing a red or yellow warning light.

ATP was first recommended after the Clapham rail disaster in 1988, in which 25 people died. The Tory government rejected it in March 1995 with the cold calculation that its application at £750m would cost £14m on each life saved, compared with £2m normally used when assessing rail safety.

Ever more information has come to light on problems that may have led to the Southall crash. One eye witness, Manjit Singh, 32, who comforted the express driver, said, "I heard a loud bang and saw a huge ball of flames and smoke. At the track side there were people staggering out of the carriages. I'm sure there was a green light on as the other train crossed the line."

The freight train had no ATP device and the 40 year old AWS unit was out of order. According to one driver the express train had the same fault for the last four days. Earlier, on the day of the crash, the signalling system controlled from Slough failed for two hours. The driver of another High Speed Train reported that he had narrowly missed crashing earlier that day because the Paddington station signal wrongly indicated that the line was unoccupied. Another driver said it was standard practice to pass over the line and immediately write reports on signal failures and broken and sliding rail.

Management were still deciding whether to introduce manual signals in that area when the crash happened.

Labour, the unions and ATP

Labour has made no attempt to rectify the Tories refusal to introduce ATP, let alone reverse their privatisation programme. They are proceeding with the privatisation of the London Underground based on the railway model.

The rail unions initially made no public defence of the express driver because they are equally culpable in the disaster. Lew Adams of ASLEF said he was "astonished" that ATP was not in operation, because there was an "unwritten assumption" that Great Western would use it on its high speed trains as part of a productivity deal agreed two years ago. Until last year all trains on the route travelling at more than 110 mph were operated by two drivers. The union agreed to one driver on trains up to 125 mph on the proviso that ATP was "in the process of being introduced",. i.e. it was not introduced yet! The so-called trial has been taking place ever since, with no opposition from the unions. Trains will travel at 140 mph next year. Similar productivity deals have been signed by ASLEF all over the country.

At the Labour Party conference, with mounting evidence of the driver's complete innocence, Adams was forced to say what should have been said in the first place. The driver had been found dazed, bruised and confused, but was not given a medical examination or allowed a union representation or a solicitor before being interviewed by the police: "He was taken to the police station and invited to sign a statement in a police notebook. There followed a public announcement that the driver was arrested in connection with alleged manslaughter." He was released without charge, but Mr Adams claimed he had been found guilty "by innuendo".

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