‘When it happens, you are helpless’
A TRAIN driver who was injured in Britain’s last fatal train crash before Wednesday’s derailment has spoken of his shock at the latest tragedy.
iain Black, 59, was at the controls of the Virgin West Coast Lines train which derailed due to faulty points at Grayriggs, Cumbria on February 23, 2007.
the train, which was carrying more than 100 passengers and crew, came off the tracks at 95mph.
Around 86 people were injured and one woman, 84-year-old Margaret Masson from Glasgow, lost her life in the accident.
Wednesday’s rail horror in Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, left six people injured and resulted in three fatalities, including the train driver, the conductor and a passenger.
Mr Black, who lives in Dumbarton, said the tragedy reminded him of his own horrifying experience, which left him with a broken neck and forced him to take early retirement.
the grandfather of one, who worked as a train driver for seven years, said: ‘it’s horrendous. it reminded me of my accident because the train was down the hill and so was mine.
‘When your train comes off the track, that’s about 400 tons worth of train, you’re helpless. You’ve just got to hold on. i was very lucky to have survived.’
reflecting on the loss of life in Stonehaven, he said: ‘they went to work [in the] morning and won’t go home… it’s awful.’
Despite the latest tragedy, Mr Black praised the safety record of the UK’s railways since his accident 13 years ago.
Following the period of heavy rainfall that struck areas of the Central Belt and eastern Scotland last night, Mr Black believes the derailment would have been due to natural causes.
He said: ‘Until now there’s been nothing since 2007 – that’s not a bad record. A lot of that is down to the rail Accident investigation Branch (rAiB) and how they work with network rail and improve things. it’s so safe nowadays. i’d be very surprised if there’s a human element to this.
‘i think they have been caught out by the weather and it’s happened pretty rapidly.’
Mr Black believes reports that a landslide was behind the fatal derailment sound plausible.
He said even if the driver could have seen a fault ahead, they probably wouldn’t have been able to stop in time.
He said: ‘in an emergency situation, once you put the brake on, you have about half a mile to stop. it’s not like a car, it’s 400 or 500 tons of train.
‘At the beginning of these things you get all the speculation. i know the first speculation was that i might have been speeding, which i wasn’t – i was on autopilot that night.
‘i know the guys at rAiB will investigate it fully and thoroughly. they’ll come up with a scientific reason for why the accident happened.
‘Depending where the flooding is, every train has a different regulation about how fast you can go. You can “run at caution”, which is basically being able to stop at the length that you can see ahead of you, but it depends what the driver was told.
‘the signaller tells the driver to “proceed at caution” or whatever, but the driver is ultimately responsible for what they believe is the safe way of working.
‘i would be very surprised if the train hadn’t been travelling at caution in flood conditions.
‘i can only assume the line washed away below the train.
‘these trains have all got black boxes so it will all be in that what the driver was doing.’
Mr Black also believed the toll of death and injury could have been higher had it not been for the local lockdown imposed last week after the area saw a fresh outbreak of Covid-19.
He said: ‘i think possibly the lockdown in Aberdeen helped and there weren’t many on the train.’