WEST COAST INVESTIGATES HELLIFIELD SPAD
Inquiry launched into ‘Dalesman’ signal incident.
West Coast Railways is investigating the passing of a signal at danger by Stanier ‘8F’ No. 48151 on May 1. The SPAD took place at Hellifield at the start of the ‘Dalesman’s’ steam leg to Carlisle. “Our incident is being thoroughly investigated in accordance with our SMS [Safety Management System]” WCR managing director Pat Marshall told Down Main. The ‘Dalesman’ had run from Chester with a pair of Class 47s, No. 48151 being added to the rear at Carnforth for the run forward to Hellifield where the train dropped off the ‘47s’ and reversed in the goods loops. The signal passed at danger is HD52, a semaphore controlling the Down loop; it’s understood that the ‘8F’ passed it by around 67 yards. Disruption to passengers from the Hellifield incident was effectively nil. With a relief driver able to take over (as is standard practice), the ‘Dalesman’ left only around 12 minutes late for Carlisle – where arrival was over three minutes early. Despite a drop in the number of SPADs since the turn of the century, when there were more than 400 a year, the annual figure still runs into the hundreds. Most are ‘low risk’: of the 270 in 2016/17, only seven were labelled ‘potentially severe’, with a further 58 ‘potentially significant’. All the others were classified as being ‘no significant risk’. A rare exception with steam was WCR’s well-known SPAD with Tangmere at Wootton Bassett Junction in 2015. As well as taking place on a busy main line, the train ended up around 700m beyond the signal – over ten times as far as at Hellifield. The ‘Dalesman’ is one of WCR’s repeat-itinerary operations, starting from either Chester or York diesel-hauled and changing to steam at Hellifield for an ‘out and back’ over the Settle-Carlisle. May 1 marked the beginning of the season, which runs into September.