The Selby rail crash (also known as the Great Heck rail crash) was a railway accident that occurred on 28 February 2001 near Great Heck, Selby, North Yorkshire when a passenger train collided with a car which had crashed down a motorway embankment onto the railway line. The passenger train then collided with an oncoming freight train. Ten people died, including the drivers of the two trains, and 82 were injured. It remains the worst rail disaster of the 21st century in the United Kingdom.
The driver of the car, Gary Hart, was convicted of ten counts of causing death by dangerous driving and sentenced to five years in prison after a jury found that he had fallen asleep while driving. Hart's insurers paid out £30 million in claims. The Health and Safety Executive investigated the accident, and made several recommendations, including research into the crashworthiness of rail vehicles. The Health and Safety Commission and Highways Agency created working groups to investigate the risks of road vehicle incursions onto railways. The Department for Transport issued a report containing guidance for assessing and mitigating the risks identified by the working groups.
Background The passenger train was an InterCity 225 operating as 1F23, the Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) 04:45 service from Newcastle to London King's Cross with 99 occupants onboard. It consisted of a leading Driving Van Trailer (DVT), nine Mark 4 coaches, and a trailing Class 91 locomotive. The InterCity 225 operates in a push-pull configuration; in normal operations, the DVT is the lead vehicle for southbound services such as this one, remotely controlling the pushing Class 91 locomotive at the rear. The freight train was operating 6G34, the Freightliner 05:00 service from Immingham Docks to Ferrybridge power station. It consisted of a leading Class 66 locomotive, and sixteen fully laden coal wagons.
The car was a Land Rover Defender, which was towing a trailer loaded with a Renault Savanna estate car. It was being driven by 36-year-old Gary Hart on a journey from his home in Strubby, Lincolnshire, which he left at 04:40, to his work in Wigan.
The accident occurred on a section of the East Coast Main Line. The line speed for this section is and passes under the M62 motorway. In the southbound direction, there is a trailing set of points connecting a freight yard to the Up line.
Events
The accident sequence began at approximately 06:13 on 28 February 2001, when the car left the westbound carriageway of the motorway just before the bridge over the rail line. The vehicle travelled down an embankment and onto the southbound railway track. After a failed attempt to reverse off the track, Hart exited the vehicle and called the emergency services using his mobile telephone. While he was on the phone, the Land Rover was hit by the InterCity 225. The sound of the train's horn and the collision with the car was captured on the call.
After striking the Land Rover, the leading bogie of the DVT derailed, but the train stayed upright. The set of trailing points from the freight yard then deflected it into the path of the oncoming freight train. The freight train and the InterCity 225 collided approximately from the InterCity 225's impact with the Land Rover, resulting in the near-total destruction of the DVT and moderate to severe damage to all nine of the InterCity 225's coaches. Most of the coaches overturned and came to rest down an embankment to the east side of the track, in a field adjacent to the railway line just south of another bridge. The trailing locomotive of the InterCity 225 was derailed but remained upright and suffered only minor damage. The freight locomotive lost its bogies after impact, with debris from the DVT jammed underneath, rupturing its fuel tank. It overturned onto its left side, coming to rest in the garden of a house next to the line, north of the bridge. The first nine wagons following it were derailed and damaged to varying extents. Two wagons that left the line with the freight locomotive flattened a caravan and garage on the grounds of the house all three came to rest in, but stopped short of striking the house itself.
Ten people were killed, including both train drivers, and 82 were injured, all as a result of the collision between the freight train and the InterCity 225. Survivors of the crash included a train driver who was travelling in the cab of the freight train, supervising the experienced driver who was learning a new route.
Investigation Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate, part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), was notified of the crash at 06:55, and four inspectors arrived at the scene at 09:24. Another four inspectors arrived shortly thereafter. The HSE released an interim report on 6 March 2001. It was conducted with the assistance of several entities, including GNER and Freightliner, the operators of the trains; Railtrack, the owner of the railway infrastructure; both South and North Yorkshire Police, the British Transport Police, and the Highways Agency. Investigators recovered the data recorder of the freight locomotive, but the InterCity 225 had not yet been fitted with one under GNER's rolling programme of installation.
Health and Safety Executive report The HSE released their final report into the accident on 4 December 2002. It stated that no defects were found with any of the railway infrastructure that could have contributed to the outcome of the crash, and that the motorway complied with the standards at the time.
At the time of the impact with the car, the InterCity 225 was estimated to have been travelling at a speed of . After the initial collision, the train then slowed to an estimated speed of prior to the impact with the freight train, which was estimated to have been travelling at . With an estimated closing speed of , the collision between the trains is the highest-speed railway incident that has occurred in the UK.
The HSE report considered the crashworthiness of the trains. The InterCity 225 had 99 occupants at the time, out of a total seating capacity of 544. The DVT suffered major damage, which included the cab being separated from the underframe. This was due to it being more lightweight, and having a lower ride height than the freight locomotive it collided with. 45 of the 52 seriously injured passengers, and all eight fatalities, were travelling in the first five coaches. These coaches were noted for having the most damage, with their survival space reduced due to several impacts. Overall, the report noted that the coaches performed well in the crash, considering the high speeds involved.
The front and right side of the freight locomotive suffered heavy damage as a result of the impact with the DVT. Though the locomotive's body had a robust construction, which meant it only suffered relatively minor structural damage compared to the other vehicles involved in the accident, its design meant that it did not have any energy absorbing features. The report added "Its design does not appear to complement the crashworthy considerations that guide the construction of passenger vehicles that use the same rail network." Some freight wagons impacted the passenger train's coaches, causing extensive damage. This was partially due to the angular design of the wagons, which was also noted in the Southall rail crash investigation.
Overall, the HSE report recommended that further research be conducted on how derailments occur and how the vehicles behave during them. This research should consider several factors, such as vehicle construction and safety features such as obstacle deflectors and bogie retention. It raised concerns relating to the design of freight trains as a whole, and mentioned that future designs should include features such as energy absorption functionality and bogie retention. It also stated that freight vehicles should avoid aggressive corners at possible interfaces with passenger trains in the event of a crash. Tripwires similar to those already used close to airport runways were mentioned as potentially warranting further research. These could detect the incursion of a road vehicle onto railway property, and interface with different train control systems. Although this may not help when a train is already close to the incident, it could provide an early warning to the incursion in other cases.
Health and Safety Commission and Highways Agency reports In response to the crash, the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) and Highways Agency (HA) created working groups to look into the risk of incursions onto railway property. The HSC reviewed previous incidents of road vehicles entering railway property other than at level crossings, and the HA reviewed the use of safety barriers on the nearside of major roads. Both groups published their reports on 25 February 2002.
The HSC identified that of the ~50 vehicles that incur onto railway property each year, ~5 are hit by a train. The working group stated that they expected a derailment to occur every one to two years, and that around one in a hundred of these derailments would then involve a collision with another train. They calculated that a similar event on the scale of the Selby rail crash would occur every 300–400 years. This resulted in a risk of ~0.1 deaths per year for occupants in trains, and ~0.4 deaths per year for occupants in road vehicles.
The HSC working group compared the ~0.5 deaths per year previously calculated to the ~600 deaths per year in accidents where road vehicles leave the carriageway in general, and the ~20 deaths per year in general rail accidents. The working group concluded that the risk was tiny in comparison to other road risks, and small in comparison to other rail risks. They stated that considerations should still be made to reduce the rail risk, but that these should not outweigh other projects tackling higher risks to road and rail.
Several methods of reducing risk were considered by the HSC working group. These included publicity campaigns to educate drivers, and tackling vandalism and careless behaviour. The report also included methods for reducing the severity of incursions onto railway property. These included measures in preventing incursions from reaching a point where a line is obstructed, preventing trains from hitting vehicles on the line, and reducing the severity of train collisions if they did occur. Overall, the report made recommendations including enabling and carrying out risk assessments; appropriately responding to those risk assessments; and implementing improvements where necessary.
The HA working group reviewed historical data for road vehicles leaving the carriageway towards the nearside, using police-submitted accident reports. These reports were only completed where injuries occurred, and the working group found that non-fatal accidents were under-reported to the police. From the data, they found that such accidents only accounted for 5% of all road accidents, but for 11% of annual road fatalities. They calculated that around 0.4 vehicles a year would leave a major road to the nearside, and reach a rail line without being stopped by either a safety barrier or hazard. They found that unprotected nearside road hazards carry a higher economic risk than the hazard associated with a vehicle reaching a rail line, mainly due to the much lower likelihood of the latter occurring.