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Clapham Junction rail crash
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The Clapham Junction rail crash was a serious railway accident involving two collisions between three commuter trains at 08:10 on the morning of 12 December 1988.
The collisions occurred 800 m (half a mile) southwest of Clapham Junction railway station in southwest London. Thirty-five people died and five hundred were injured, making the crash one of the worst in the UK in recent times.
first collision occurred after the driver of the 07:18 from Basingstoke to Waterloo saw a signal in front of him abruptly change from green to red.
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Encyclopedia
The Clapham Junction rail crash was a serious railway accident involving two collisions between three commuter trains at 08:10 on the morning of 12 December 1988.
The collisions occurred 800 m (half a mile) southwest of Clapham Junction railway station in southwest London. Thirty-five people died and five hundred were injured, making the crash one of the worst in the UK in recent times.
Incident
The first collision occurred after the driver of the 07:18 from Basingstoke to Waterloo saw a signal in front of him abruptly change from green to red. As required, the driver stopped his train at the next signal post telephone to report to the signalman at Clapham Junction 'A' signal box that his train had passed a red signal. He was advised there was no fault and that he was free to proceed. The driver told the signalman that he intended to make a formal report when he reached Waterloo. As the driver hung up the phone his train was hit from behind at a speed of about 40 mph (65 km/h) by the late-running 06:14 from Poole, running under false 'proceed' signals.
A second side-on collision a short time afterwards involved the second, third and fourth coaches of an empty train leaving Clapham Junction being hit by the wreckage of the Poole train. A fourth train approaching also under false clear signals at the time managed to stop about 70 yd (60 m) clear of the rear of the Poole train.
Pupils from the adjacent Emanuel School were first on the scene of the disaster and helped save the lives of many. They were commended for their service by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
Investigation
The primary cause of the crash was incorrect wiring work in which an old wire, incorrectly left in place after rewiring work and still connected at the supply end, created a false feed to a signal relay, thereby causing its signal to show green when it should have shown red. A contributing technical factor was the lack of double switching in the signal relay circuits, which would have prevented a single false feed causing an accident. The larger cause of the accident was the failure by British Rail senior management to recognise that the resignalling of the Clapham Junction area – and indeed the resignalling of all the lines out of Waterloo, of which this was a part – should have been treated as a major, safety-critical project, controlled throughout by a single, senior, named project manager. Instead the job was left to middle-level technical staff, stressed, poorly supervised by their seniors and poorly supported by their juniors. Staffing levels were inadequate and the staff, dulled by months of voluntary seven-days-a-week work, were carrying out the complete resignalling of the largest and, on some measures, busiest junction on the whole British rail system. British Rail were forced to overhaul their signal works testing regime and adopted the tried and tested method employed on the London Underground.
The Hidden Inquiry (Hidden being the name of the chairman of the inquiry not a description of the report's secrecy) into the Clapham rail crash found that a supervisor - Mr. Lippett - had noticed some loose wiring during an inspection but had not told anyone about it because he did not want to "rock the boat". In latter years, the balance between confidentiality and safety (or in other milieu, societal accountability) has been addressed in part by so-called "whistleblowing" legislation such as the UK Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, and similar provisions in other countries.
The inquiry also recommended the introduction of the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system; however the inquiry's recommendation was not acted on. Subsequent crashes such as at Southall in 1997 and Ladbroke Grove in 1999 led to further recommendations for the introduction of ATP, and although it has been installed on some lines, it has not to date been specified for the entire network. In the statement on the Ladbroke Grove crash, the Department for Transport sought to make the point that "no workable system was available in Britain" at the time.
The accident also highlighted the relatively poor crashworthiness of the rolling stock, which was all of BR's 1950s vintage Mark 1 design. Being of separate chassis design, the carriage superstructures detached from their underframes on impact and disintegrated in the collision. The enquiry recommended that the use of Mark 1 stock should end on the main line, and their use on low speed commuter lines should be gradually phased out. However, Mark 1 based multiple units similar to those involved in the Clapham accident were still operating on South London commuter lines as late as 2005, some 17 years later.
A memorial marking the location of the crash site is atop the embankment above the railway on Windmill Road by Spencer Park, Battersea.
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