Stafford rail crash (1996)
Encyclopedia
On 8 March 1996, a Travelling Post Office
mail train hauled by a Rail Express Systems
British Rail Class 86
electric locomotive
(no 86239) collided with the rear of a freight train at Rickerscote just south of Stafford
. One person, a mail sorter was killed in the crash, and twenty two others including the driver of the mail train were injured.
The cause of the collision was the failure of a bearing in the axlebox of one of the tanker wagons of the freight train, which was carrying industrial acid. It caused the wagon and adjacent ones to derail, immediately into the path of the mail train, which was travelling at 60 mph (97 km/h).
The driver of the mail train had no time to brake, and the force of the collision spun the locomotive around and catapulted it up the embankment, coming to rest against the end wall of a house.
A bearing failure on a tanker wagon was also the cause of the Summit tunnel fire
of 1984.
Travelling Post Office
A Travelling Post Office was a type of mail train in the UK where the post was sorted en-route. The last Travelling Post Office services were ended on 9 January 2004, with the carriages used now sold for scrap or to preservation societies....
mail train hauled by a Rail Express Systems
Rail Express Systems
Upon the sectorisation of British Rail during the 1980s the Parcels Sector was created. In 1991 this was rebranded Rail Express Systems. The Rail Express Systems launch event was held at Crewe Diesel Depot in October 1991. For this event examples of Class 08, 47, 86 & 90 locomotives were painted...
British Rail Class 86
British Rail Class 86
The British Rail Class 86 was the standard electric locomotive built during the 1960s, developed as a result of testing with the earlier Classes 81, 82, 83, 84 and 85. One hundred of these locomotives were built from 1965-1966 by either English Electric at Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows, or...
electric locomotive
Electric locomotive
An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or an on-board energy storage device...
(no 86239) collided with the rear of a freight train at Rickerscote just south of Stafford
Stafford
Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies approximately north of Wolverhampton and south of Stoke-on-Trent, adjacent to the M6 motorway Junction 13 to Junction 14...
. One person, a mail sorter was killed in the crash, and twenty two others including the driver of the mail train were injured.
The cause of the collision was the failure of a bearing in the axlebox of one of the tanker wagons of the freight train, which was carrying industrial acid. It caused the wagon and adjacent ones to derail, immediately into the path of the mail train, which was travelling at 60 mph (97 km/h).
The driver of the mail train had no time to brake, and the force of the collision spun the locomotive around and catapulted it up the embankment, coming to rest against the end wall of a house.
A bearing failure on a tanker wagon was also the cause of the Summit tunnel fire
Summit tunnel fire
The Summit Tunnel fire occurred on 20 December 1984 on a dangerous goods train passing through the Summit Tunnel on the Greater Manchester/West Yorkshire border, on the rail line between Littleborough and Todmorden, England.-History:...
of 1984.
External links
- www.railwaysarchive.co.uk - copy of the HMRI report