Here's footage of the accident…

It almost looks like they are going to fast or misjudged the distance to the waiting passenger cars, but that's all I can see. Maybe there was something else to this which caused them not to slow down?

Proper procedure would be to stop short (10 or 15 feet), and then have the "ground man" bring the engine back into a nice soft coupling.

WOW!

Talk about a hard coupling! The engineer was backing into the joint way too fast. And, as Hot Water said, standard procedure on a passenger coupling is to make a “safety stop” about 10-15 feet away, then gently back into the joint.

Somebody screwed up here big time.

@Hot Water posted:

Proper procedure would be to stop short (10 or 15 feet), and then have the "ground man" bring the engine back into a nice soft coupling.

I was surprised to not see a ground person in the video. But if there was one, I suppose it would have been on the other side, since British drivers sit on the other side of the cab from US ones. Which then begs the question, was the ground person not paying attention?

What speed do you think they were at least traveling at @Hot Water and @Rich Melvin?

I love the video description, "... low speed" shunting accident.

Low speed my butt! That was not even close to "low speed."

Referred to as: "cold welding" in some yards.

@Hot Water posted:

Proper procedure would be to stop short (10 or 15 feet), and then have the "ground man" bring the engine back into a nice soft coupling.

When I worked at Amazon Air, I was on the actual tarmac dealing with planes.  And when you were driving a tug (whether or not it was loaded down with ULDs), the procedure was to come to a complete stop before approaching, and there was a person who would guide you in.

If you did not follow this, you were generally promoted to "Customer" very quickly.

@Rob Leese posted:

Referred to as: "cold welding" in some yards.

@Homey B posted:

When I worked at Amazon Air, I was on the actual tarmac dealing with planes.  And when you were driving a tug (whether or not it was loaded down with ULDs), the procedure was to come to a complete stop before approaching, and there was a person who would guide you in.

If you did not follow this, you were generally promoted to "Customer" very quickly.

"Cold welding" and "promoted to customer" - thanks, now I have two great new terms to use when someone screws up at an operating session. 

That should buff out.  Maybe a little Bondo.

To my ignorant eyes, it didn't look all that fast so I guess I would say "slow speed". Certainly faster than safe for a coupling with people at the vestibule, but I think I have seen freight yards where couplings were made at similar speeds.

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

What speed do you think they were at least traveling at @Hot Water and @Rich Melvin?

That looks like 6 to 8 mph to me.

Max coupling speed for freight is 4 mph.

Max speed for a gentle passenger coupling should be less than walking speed, as in 1-2 mph.

A video of it from the observation car.

Man that is just not good. While I'm not a person that works on the railroad, like Rich says it's real slow. Back in 2019 and 2021 when I was out at Strasburg, I caught the coupling of 611 to the passenger cars. As described there is a person guiding the engineer to the cars, and the speed is a crawl. Yeah when the engine couples to the cars there is a bit of a jolt, but not anything to knock anyone off their feet.

This stinks for the railroad as no doubt they may have some legal action coming their way. I don't even want to begin to speculate what actions would be taken with the crew even though I think it would be similar to the Strasburg 89 accident, just across the pond is all.

We could see that coming.  Totally unacceptable.

Since the Flying Scotsman is not in daily use, the Driver did not keep in mind (if he even knew) the braking characteristics of this locomotive.  Some of them react very quickly to independent brake applications, while others react s-l-o-w-l-y.  You have to know the equipment and its performance characteristics if you're going to run a passenger train.  The same applies if you are just hostling the engine or shunting passenger equipment.

This is a very serious matter.  Railway equipment is very durable, but passenger equipment is more fragile than freight equipment.  There could be damage resulting from this incident, that is not immediately visible to the casual observer.

My grading of this Driver:

• Speed Control F
• Brake Control F
• Situational Awareness F
• Compliance with Rules F
• Emergency Control F

That sounds like an over-reaction to me.

@BenLMaggi posted:

That sounds like an over-reaction to me.

So, you have a lot of experience as a steam locomotive Engineer?

Thank God for the buffers that suffer the duffers!!

Ba-dum tish!

@BenLMaggi posted:

That sounds like an over-reaction to me.

I have some experience with running steam on historic railroads. It is surprisingly difficult to maintain brakes on some steam locos after perhaps 110 years. Our engineers knew that brakes on one of our units were in the range of a strong suggestion...

Nice example of Newton's First Law of Motion.

@Number 90 I agree. A locomotive is not a car, and that is what some people tend to think of it without considering how it works. They're not tractor trailers either, and while trucks require some more brain power than cars, locomotives are in a separate class, that's why we have engineers. We lay folk only have about less than 1% of knowledge on what it takes to operate and control a locomotive. As Rich and Hot Water have said on other posts, an engineer keeps the locomotive under control. There have been a good number of videos shared on how serious just some routine runs can be, what we lay folk would say, "Oh, that's easy." A big BS on that. There is so much more going on.

Whatever this particular engineer and crew got up to, clearly someone was distracted. While we don't know what was going on in the cab, it sure shouldn't happen again, especially for the person at the controls. It is lucky no one died.

Before you go shooting the piano player, there are other questions to be answered. Obviously the engineer couldn't see the coupling, so, where was a person on the ground controling the movement by giving the engineer any kind of signal? It appears that the fireman could see something, why wasn't he telling the engineer to slow down? Why was anyone other than operating personel allowed on the open end of the car? A lot of blame to be shared all around!

With the other elements in mind, such as nobody attending the coupling on the ground, ect, the video brings up a question.

If the weather was damp, was the rail slippery? The fence obscures the view of the rods moving and it makes me wonder if the engine slid into the standing cars, with the wheels not turning.

I have seen this scenario before, with engines striking standing equipment or engine house doors due to sliding on wet rail. Of course, the Engineer is always held accountable for the control of his locomotive, but the possible element could be a factor, once weather conditions are noted.

It was a hard coupling by US standards. The buffers took the brunt of the impact. The condition of the car after the collision, on the surface, indicates a speed no higher than 7-8 mph. There was little visible damage such as crushing or creasing, but of course a closer inspection may reveal hidden damage. Speeds around 10mph plus, often end up in overriding and or derailment.

Finally, I was once riding an Amtrak train from Buffalo NY to NYC. An engine change occurred at Albany. We were a few cars back from the headend of a conventional equipped train(1974) in a coach. When the FL9 was coupled to our train, it hit so hard, people in the coach screamed! It was a good jolt, but we were soon on our way.

With the little time I spent in Europe, I would have expected a crew member standing between the cars inboard of the buffers. He is waiting for the loco to bump into the train to swing up the link that he has to put over the hook on the adjacent car.   Then the turnbuckle is tightened to take the slack out of the coupling. I can not imagine how that person deals with a situation like this.

The video Rick had linked is gone now, all the articles I looked up today which the newest was a day old all basically say nothing other than all we already know. All the articles are riddled with annoying ads so no point in trying to link any of them. I guess we'll have to wait for more information to come to light. I was hoping to ask one of the local people I know on FB, but I'll have to dig into that further but guessing they'll be as much in the dark as we are.

Weather in the form of wet rail could indeed have been a contributing cause, but the Driver is responsible for thinking of things like that in advance.  Krieglok knows more about that than I do, as he is a retired commuter passenger train Engineer from territory where water, leaves, ice, and snow regularly play havoc when making station stops and starts during the cold season.

What is not known from looking at the video is whether the Driver was regularly employed by the railroad, or might instead have been a "weekender" who is not a railway employee, but is furnished by a preservation society which owns the engine and cars.  

It would not be surprising if this incident results in increased oversight of historic railway equipment movements in the United Kingdom.

@Hot Water posted:

So, you have a lot of experience as a steam locomotive Engineer?

The shortline I have an ownership stake in does own a pair of steam locomotives and operates one of them when it is available on passenger trains. Sadly, it is currently undergoing a rehab but should be operational again soon.

@BenLMaggi posted:

The shortline I have an ownership stake in does own a pair of steam locomotives and operates one of them when it is available on passenger trains. Sadly, it is currently undergoing a rehab but should be operational again soon.

So...none.

I have a question about operators in general. My question is does an operator/engineer and crew know or knowingly test the locomotive thoroughly to make sure it is running properly? Of course the answer is a resounding yes. It would have to be. If there were any issues they should have been addressed ahead of time(for the equipment/locomotive) right? Every crew has to make sure that there equipment is working properly to the best of their abilities.

The rails and or surrounding conditions(weather) should be at least aware of as well I would imagine.

Here in NJ, the crew that operates #60 are volunteers. They are retired railroad workers and have trained new apprentices to learn the equipment. I imagine that there is more besides just learning the equipment as I think Rich has said something about being certified to operate. How does one get certified to operate, through state or federal or both?

@Rich Melvin

Tom,

Yes, the Engineer and others in the cab of a locomotive are responsible for awareness of elements affecting the movement of a train. Typical rules regarding locomotive control simply state: “The Engineer must have control of the locomotive at all times”.

The crew may have been B.S.ing during the move, the Engineer may have suffered from a mental vacation. And finally, people simply screw up now and then. This is one case a cab camera could shed light on the conditions in the cab, at the time. I am not a fan of video surveillance in the work place, but I am not a fan of wrecking historic equipment either.

Dave,

Engineers are certified using Federal standards applicable to the type railroad in question. The actual certification or “License “, is issued by the carrier.

Tom

Before we are too quick to condemn the engineer here, we have to consider the conductor - the man on the ground.

In a switching scenario like this, the engineer is taking his movement commands from someone on the ground who can see the move clearly. If the guy on the ground wasn't paying attention and did not give the engineer the stop signal in time, the blame could lie there. Was the rail slippery and did the wheels slide when the engineer applied the brake? I don't recall whether that happened and the video has been pulled, so we don't know the answer to that.

My point is that there are a lot of reasons why this hard coupling could have taken place, and most of them do not involve the engineer.

@Rich Melvin posted:

Before we are too quick to condemn the engineer here, we have to consider the conductor - the man on the ground.

In a switching scenario like this, the engineer is taking his movement commands from someone on the ground who can see the move clearly. If the guy on the ground wasn't paying attention and did not give the engineer the stop signal in time, the blame could lie there. Was the rail slippery and did the wheels slide when the engineer applied the brake? I don't recall whether that happened and the video has been pulled, so we don't know the answer to that.

My point is that there are a lot of reasons why this hard coupling could have taken place, and most of them do not involve the engineer.

I am thinking the ground person, or conductor, was in the cab, riding the move. There wasn’t anybody on the point of the move from what we could see.

Of course this is just a hypothesis.

Tom

@Rich Melvin posted:

Before we are too quick to condemn the engineer here, we have to consider the conductor - the man on the ground.

In a switching scenario like this, the engineer is taking his movement commands from someone on the ground who can see the move clearly. If the guy on the ground wasn't paying attention and did not give the engineer the stop signal in time, the blame could lie there. Was the rail slippery and did the wheels slide when the engineer applied the brake? I don't recall whether that happened and the video has been pulled, so we don't know the answer to that.

My point is that there are a lot of reasons why this hard coupling could have taken place, and most of them do not involve the engineer.

From my memory Rich I did not see any person on the ground, though they could be obstructed from the cameras view in several spots as the camera is focused solely on the engine. I do not recall hearing the brake but I do not know how audible that sound would be either, so there's that.

Often we lay people think braking makes very loud screeching when applied since we have come accustomed to movies showing us the very dramatic. For all we know brakes being applied could be unnoticeable depending on how hard they are applied. Heck, if the brakes are new or worn that could also factor in.

As far as jumping to conclusions, yeah, that is something that is human nature. React without thinking half the time. I recently saw a report that was being corrected because a video had gone viral, and the reporting only had about a quarter of the story. This was not helped by other outlets that had broke that particular story, but the reporter who was correcting it said that they themselves should have done their due diligence. That reporter expressed how bad she felt since the story was not correct from the start and had impacted the person in question severely.

I guess we may get some answers as to what really happened, but I guess we probably will not. Time may tell.

@John Hon posted:

A video of it from the observation car.

https://twitter.com/thebashmas.../1708921216923205639

In the Twitter/TikTok video the conductor is not visible either. I would imagine though he would be to the right side of the camera view, most likely fairly close to the car? The only other person that can be seen is the person that shot the other video on the other side of the fence.

Nerves of steel on the person filming from the platform.

I think if I saw a locomotive coming in the fast, I'd run further back into the car.

@RickO posted:

Nerves of steel on the person filming from the platform.

I think if I saw a locomotive coming in the fast, I'd run further back into the car.

I looked up on the tube to see if there was any other videos, not worth anyone's time. A bunch of people who have too much time on their hands as they either have Thomas engines they are using, simulated videos, or a mashup of just about anything. Sure some folks may be at least a little concerned about the people hurt, but are those videos really contributing anything at all? Heck, I don't know. I'm just a little ticked at one of the ones I watched. Terrible.

P.S., not any of the videos we have seen here.

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

Often we lay people think braking makes very loud screeching when applied since we have come accustomed to movies showing us the very dramatic. For all we know brakes being applied could be unnoticeable depending on how hard they are applied. Heck, if the brakes are new or worn that could also factor in.

Applying the engine brake would not make a sound. There is a tiny sound of air moving that you might hear if you were very close to the locomotive, but there is no loud screeching, squeaking, or anything like that.