Ffestiniog level crossing crash

[saaby93]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wal...
Anyone know more?

[WelshChris]

Yes me - Not much more to say really. You can't legislate for people who simply ignore warnings and drive over crossings without looking. It was a local driver, and they're usually the worst. Tourists tend to take more care.

65 tonnes of NG/G16 going at full tilt up a 1 in 40 gradient is always going to make a mess of a car. We're thankful that it took a glancing blow on the front wing rather than full broadside. The coupling would have punctured the door skin and pushed the vehicle along the track.

Thankfully nobody was hurt.

[saaby93]

Ungated?

[trickywoo]

Shame. Looked a tidy Puma.

[rs1952]

saaby93 said:

Ungated?

Why don't you look it up? It took me all of 10 seconds to find a local newspaper article online to find that it was the Welsh Highland Railway not the Ffestiniog (OK splitting hairs there), and also finding out that it happened at Beddgelert.

Then off to the online OS (Sabre maps) to find a LC near Beddgelert an then a quick move to Google Street View and here we are:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.0110808,-4.11502...

10 minutes and job jobbed.

It's a single lane minor road in an area where people who live in the Back of Beyond go to get away from it all. By the look of it, if you do more than 20 down there you've got a death wish.

There are two warning signs each side of this narrow road. The timber fences on each side appear to narrow the field of vision, and that field of vision points your eyes towards some railway track. When a train comes the driver will be blowing his whistle like its going out of fashion

There must be a few clues there, even for the brain dead, unless a deaf car driver has a white stick and his Labrador was doing the driving...

And you perhaps seem to think that if it was ungated then that makes a difference? A straw to clutch at for an idiot who wasn't driving according to the conditions that were unfolding in front of him? Christ...

By the way, this thread is a few hours old and you haven't mentioned Ladbroke Grove yet...

[Simpo Two]

rs1952 said:

ranty stuff followed by 'When a train comes the driver will be blowing his whistle like its going out of fashion

Maybe he forgot this time. Train drivers are humans too...

rs1952 said:

There must be a few clues there, even for the brain dead, unless a deaf car driver has a white stick and his Labrador was doing the driving...

Maybe he was distracted by something. It's the price for membership of the H. sapiens club.

rs1952 said:

And you perhaps seem to think that if it was ungated then that makes a difference? A straw to clutch at for an idiot who wasn't driving according to the conditions that were unfolding in front of him?

Of course gates make a bloody difference! If there were gates you'd (yes even you Captain Perfect) would be far less likely to drive your car through them because you'd think 'fk me, gates across the road, I'll stop'.

Sorry mate but you just sound like a 'all car drivers are idiots' ranter.

[rs1952]

Simpo Two said:

Sorry mate but you just sound like a 'all car drivers are idiots' ranter.

I can understand why you might think that, but in truth it was more of a "oh no Sabby's found another level crossing smash to waffle on about" rant

But, consider these points:

1. The road, as you will see from the link I provided, is narrow and not conducive to high speed. I would suggest that the car would have been unlikely to have been exceeding 30 down there, and probably a bit less.

2. The Welsh Highland Railway, in common with all other railways operated under a Light Railway Order, is subject to a maximum speed of 25mph over its entire route, and will be restricted even more at specific locations on that route. Whether this crossing is one such location I don't know but, on full-size passenger carrying railways on the national network where there are ungated crossings (to my knowledge on the Newquay and Gunnislake branches, and Whitland to Pembroke Dock - there are almost certainly others) a train will first stop, sound horn and then proceed at caution.

3. As someone else has already pointed out, the line is on a 1 in 40 gradient at that point. The steam locomotive at the business end of the train is going to be working close to flat out (power-wise, not speed-wise) to get its train up that hill. It will be the rough equivalent of you trying to get up a 1 in 4 hill in your car in second gear.

4. Given the probable speed of the car (slow) and the certain speed of the train (slow), to be hit at all the train would have had to be virtually on the crossing before the car started to cross. There would have been no "but it came at me unawares, guv" excuse. A bloody great engine making a bloody great noise (even if the driver didn't whistle, which would have broken all the rules anyway so therefore unlikely) that would have had to be at least in the corner of the drivers field of vision, and probably more towards the centre of the field of vision.

And still he crossed.

I'm sorry, call me an anti-car ranter if you will, but the only explanation for this that I can see is industrial strength Darwinism.

[eldar]

Simpo Two said:

Of course gates make a bloody difference! If there were gates you'd (yes even you Captain Perfect) would be far less likely to drive your car through them because you'd think 'fk me, gates across the road, I'll stop'.

Sorry mate but you just sound like a 'all car drivers are idiots' ranter.

So all the signs can be ignored. Presumably the time spent ascertaining a)there were gates at all b)were functional and c)open caused the motorist to look at the sign, and decide that only people named Ildiwch need to give way. If your name was something else you tag with the train...

[Simpo Two]

rs1952 said:

I can understand why you might think that, but in truth it was more of a "oh no Sabby's found another level crossing smash to waffle on about" rant

Ah well it's true I'm not aware of any history.

rs1952 said:

And still he crossed.

I'm sorry, call me an anti-car ranter if you will, but the only explanation for this that I can see is industrial strength Darwinism.

Agreed, though Darwinism is what got us to where we are today, and H&S weakens the gene pool every day...

Philosophy aside, the fact remains that a car was hit by a train. If you want to decrease that likelihood, then fit gates. Because gates are a visual and physical barrier and reduce the chances of the dopey driver crossing. And because humans are fallible. Or you can NOT fit gates, and put the driver in jail because gates were too expensive. It's like saying 'Well we could have made the crossing safer, but we didn't'.

[WelshChris]

rs1952 said:

Why don't you look it up? It took me all of 10 seconds to find a local newspaper article online to find that it was the Welsh Highland Railway not the Ffestiniog (OK splitting hairs there), and also finding out that it happened at Beddgelert.

Then off to the online OS (Sabre maps) to find a LC near Beddgelert an then a quick move to Google Street View and here we are:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.0110808,-4.11502...

10 minutes and job jobbed.

It's a single lane minor road in an area where people who live in the Back of Beyond go to get away from it all. By the look of it, if you do more than 20 down there you've got a death wish.

There are two warning signs each side of this narrow road. The timber fences on each side appear to narrow the field of vision, and that field of vision points your eyes towards some railway track. When a train comes the driver will be blowing his whistle like its going out of fashion

There must be a few clues there, even for the brain dead, unless a deaf car driver has a white stick and his Labrador was doing the driving...

And you perhaps seem to think that if it was ungated then that makes a difference? A straw to clutch at for an idiot who wasn't driving according to the conditions that were unfolding in front of him? Christ...

By the way, this thread is a few hours old and you haven't mentioned Ladbroke Grove yet...

That is the correct crossing (Bron Hebog) although there are others nearby. The road is very rough - 10mph would be too much - and it is private, therefore traffic restricted to locals, mainly residents. There are three or four properties that have to use the crossing for access.

The train would have been doing nothing like 25 on that gradient. It was heavily loaded and probably a maximum of 15 would be attainable, but as you say given the gradient and tight curves it would have been going pretty much flat out at that point having negotiated the S-bends on its way out of Beddgelert Station.

The car driver was going uphill, therefore around 150 yards earlier he would have crossed the line at another crossing, with the train travelling from right to left, as opposed to left to right at the time of the accident. He would have had a good view of the approaching train had he bothered to look before driving on to the crossing, and in this weather (windows down - No air con I suspect) he would certainly have heard the chuffing!.... and the driver definitely did whistle. there is an ex A4 pacific chime whistle fitted to that loco which would wake the dead.

The fact is that the driver was negligent in the extreme. He was a local and assumed that he could drive across without looking (as you technically could 90 percent of the time). He also did a runner immediately afterwards which might possibly indicate intoxication (although I'm not alleging this or in a position to confirm this). It should also be noted that residents with access to that road did not want gates fitted because of the inconvenience - they would be manually operated with no crossing keeper. The crossing conforms to all ORR safety regulations in terms of construction and signage.

Apologists for these careless drivers are a waste of space. There is NO excuse for not being vigilant anywhere near a level crossing, simple as that. The last thing we want to do is kill some careless idiot, and we do everything we can to prevent such incidents.

[saaby93]

rs1952 said:

Why don't you look it up? It took me all of 10 seconds to find a local newspaper article online to find that it was the Welsh Highland Railway not the Ffestiniog (OK splitting hairs there), and also finding out that it happened at Beddgelert.

Then off to the online OS (Sabre maps) to find a LC near Beddgelert an then a quick move to Google Street View and here we are:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.0110808,-4.11502...

10 minutes and job jobbed.

It's a single lane minor road in an area where people who live in the Back of Beyond go to get away from it all. By the look of it, if you do more than 20 down there you've got a death wish.

There are two warning signs each side of this narrow road. The timber fences on each side appear to narrow the field of vision, and that field of vision points your eyes towards some railway track. When a train comes the driver will be blowing his whistle like its going out of fashion

There must be a few clues there, even for the brain dead, unless a deaf car driver has a white stick and his Labrador was doing the driving...

And you perhaps seem to think that if it was ungated then that makes a difference? A straw to clutch at for an idiot who wasn't driving according to the conditions that were unfolding in front of him? Christ...

By the way, this thread is a few hours old and you haven't mentioned Ladbroke Grove yet...

Thanks
Nothing wrong with ungated crossings if theyre adequately sighted (or gated ones for that matter).
With either the driver (if there are gates, open them & get back in the car) edges nose forward until they can see past any infrastructure.
If at the point they can see, the nose of the car is across the track, the train will swipe it off
There's another thread about a poorly sighted crossing on a main line where that happened.
We've also seen where eye level lights next to the crossing can help - if theyre visible from the car drivers seat and not positioned passenger side.



Bear in mind the google camera is on a tripod on top the roof of the camera car.
How far forward would a seated driver have to take their car to see properly around the fencing?
Otherwise it could be the human problem of brain and eyes filling in for what might be there.
Is anyone going to put their P&J in front of a humungous train on purpose

More on WHR here - wondered about that too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Highland_Railw...

Edited by saaby93 on Saturday 7th July 08:18