Stafford rail crash (1990)

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The train crash at Stafford on 4 August 1990, resulted in the death of a train driver and injuries to 36 people.

Stafford county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England

Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England. It lies approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of Wolverhampton, 18 miles (29 km) south of Stoke-on-Trent and 24 miles (39 km) north-west of Birmingham. The population in 2001 was 63,681 and that of the wider borough of Stafford 122,000, the fourth largest in the county after Stoke-on-Trent, Tamworth and Newcastle-under-Lyme.

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The 11:36 pm empty coaching stock train from Stoke-on-Trent to Birmingham Soho TMD ran into the rear of the 10:18 pm express passenger train from Manchester Piccadilly to Penzance, which was standing in platform 4 at Stafford station. The empty train was signalled to draw up behind the express in order to clear the way for another train. [1]

Stoke-on-Trent railway station mainline railway station serving the city of Stoke-on-Trent in England

Stoke-on-Trent railway station is a mainline railway station serving the city of Stoke-on-Trent and the town of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It lies on the Stafford to Manchester branch of the West Coast Main Line. The station also provides an interchange between various local services running through Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire.

Birmingham City in the English Midlands, 2nd highest population of UK cities

Birmingham is the second-most populous city in the United Kingdom, after London, and the most populous city in the English Midlands. With an estimated population of 1,137,100 as of 2017, Birmingham is the cultural, social, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. It is the main centre of the West Midlands conurbation, which is the third most populated urban area in the United Kingdom, with a population in 2011 of 2,440,986. The wider Birmingham metropolitan area is the second largest in the United Kingdom with a population of over 3.7 million. Birmingham is frequently referred to as the United Kingdom's "second city".

Soho TMD

Soho TMD is a railway Traction Maintenance Depot situated in Smethwick, West Midlands, England. It is located in Smethwick's industrial area of Soho on the boundary with Birmingham, its depot code is SO. The depot is approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) west of Birmingham New Street station.

The driver of the empty train, who was the only fatality, was considered not to have kept a good lookout. This was possibly compounded by excessive working hours and by the alcohol that was subsequently found in his bloodstream. [2]

Alcohol any organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional group (–OH) is bound to a saturated carbon atom

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional group (–OH) is bound to a carbon. The term alcohol originally referred to the primary alcohol ethanol, which is used as a drug and is the main alcohol present in alcoholic beverages. An important class of alcohols, of which methanol and ethanol are the simplest members, includes all compounds for which the general formula is CnH2n+1OH. It is these simple monoalcohols that are the subject of this article.

The Rule Book was changed to avoid this situation. Now if a train is to be signalled into an occupied section and that train is not booked to call at that location, the driver must be first advised. Also before a train can be signalled behind another, the signal ahead of the stationary train must be at danger until the second train has come to a stand, to avoid potential 'over-reading' of the signal by the second driver.

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References

  1. Webb, Jonathan (May 2017). "Focus on Stafford". Today's Railways UK. Sheffield: Platform 5 (185): 54–55. ISSN   1475-9713.
  2. "Railway accident at Stafford" (PDF). railwaysarchive.co.uk. Health and Safety Executive. 5 January 1994. p. 14. Retrieved 16 April 2017.

Coordinates: 52°48′12″N2°7′21″W / 52.80333°N 2.12250°W / 52.80333; -2.12250

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.