Hart saying “no deaths occurred when the train hit my Land Rover” shows how callous and thick he is. Someone needs to explain to him what a “chain of causation” is.
Yeah, well, he was the subject of a witch hunt, there is no definitive proof that he fell asleep at the wheel, as I understood, his claim was that he had hit something, not a "mechanical failure", but how they determined that there was no "mechanical failure" when the front of his Land Rover was hit by a speeding train is highly suspicious in and of itself. The British government has a history of malicious prosecution, just consider the case of the Birmingham Six and similar cases, if they would lie about something like that, I have no doubt that they would manufacture a simple accident into manslaughter for a laugh.
Small detail (I'm the former Technical Manager of the InterCity 225 fleet): the leading vehicle of the train at the time wasn't an engine. It was a DVT (Driving Van Trailer). A relevant detail because a DVT is a much lighter vehicle than the locomotive at the rear of the train (same loco, 91023, as on the Hatfield derailment unfortunately). The DVT is effectively an empty vehicle with a driving cab at one end and mostly empty space behind. Less than half the mass of the class 91 loco which was pushing the train from the rear at the time. Had the 91 been leading the crash would still have been catastrophic but the dynamic of the crash would have been different given its greater ability to deflect the freight train than the DVT.
Hi Mike wow! i'm not sure that many people understand the gravity of who you are! and that's a Big big detail to be honest I am in the process of recreating the events for a new documentary on the accident, the DVT details and the push pull capabilities of the 91 or 225! and as the technical director of the fleet at the time oh that's cool, really cool, I have so many questions! would it possible to connect with you directly via email ? Ps i'm no trainspotter more of a train accident enthusiast for my channel, very early days! details like you mentioned is an absolute must to be added for a comprehensive understanding on what happened that day, I would be really happy to listen to what you have to say if that's OK with you. I have recreated a few now, only Logan accident the x2 class 66, the summit tunnel derailment class 185 and greyrigg 390 pendolino, Ouch! I look forward to hearing from you in anyway you can! ps I am Rob Trunley a builder by trade www.bpmcornwall.com, the youtube thing is a long term prospect. please contact me on rob@bpmcornwall.com or 07986 478 280
'A modern-day hunter-gatherer', eh? Ooooh, howdja hunt-gather that Land Rover, mister? Didja hunt-gather that tie you're wearing, mister I-believe-in-fate?! Tell, me if a man pushed you off a cliff, would you say the man hadn't killed you because you only died when you hit the ground?! God, I don't often get this absolutely worked up about some stranger I've never met, but this arsehole sure is doing it.
I can't believe it's been over 20 years since this tragedy. I never heard of Gary Hart's interview, and from what was mentioned in this video, I can't believe how arrogant he was, saying he wasn't to blame. And his prison sentence was shockingly light
@@WobblesandBean that is not true, the UK give WHOLE LIFE SENTENCES the problem is we make an exception for CARS because cars are king above everything!
@@yy17782 Yeah...emergency operators hear all sorts of horrible things when taking those calls so to hear one say 'oh my god' is kind of chilling because they know something catastrophic is about to happen
@@acidmack1041Usually when they take a call, an incident has already happened, or is in progress. Very rarely do they take a call before the emergency has happened, and hear the chain of events being set in motion in the background. I don't know why, but for me, if I were that call handler, hearing that train, followed seconds later by the screeching of metal being ripped open, is worse than taking the call & hearing the commotion after the impact has occurred. Maybe it's because in those brief seconds of hearing the train, you know what's coming & you're completely powerless. Useless. Relegated to the sidelines as a bystander, unable to do anything, all those aboard at the mercy of the fates, or whatever you want to call it. Wanting to be proactive, but completely unable to be, knowing you can only be reactive, when it's already too late.
The list of deaths at the end is poignant - all men in there 30s and 40s up early in the morning, either working on the train or presumably heading to work to support their families.
I actually worked with the son of the Freightliner driver at Salisbury - James Dunn. He followed in his dad's footsteps to be a driver albeit on passenger trains rather than frieght locos. I avoided talking about the accident until James brought it up in conversation in the messroom but he was quite open about it. The 66 in which his dad died was repaired and actually came through Salisbury one day on a working. The signal box had let James know that it was on it's way and James ran out to take a picture of it. I also worked with Johnny Rolls, the Bournemouth driver in the Clapham crash when I was at Bomo depot and Clive Brooker, lovely bloke, who died in the Holton Heath crash in April afterwards. Robin Tandy was another one of my workmates who had a lucky escape in the more recent Salisbury crash. Many people will say that we aren't worth what we are paid but how many people go to work and lose friends in that job?
the locomotive involved in the crash (66521) was written off and scrapped as a result of major damage sustained in the collision. Are you sure you're not getting mixed up with 66526 which was named "Driver Steve Dunn (George)" in memory of Steve Dunn?
@@fives2155 Maybe. James just said that it was his dad's loco so I assumed it had been repaired. I didn't know that one had been named after him. Nice touch by the company.
My uncle's neighbour was a train driver. You more than deserve your salary. The things he experienced, no one should have to. I hope you have access to a good support system ❤
What a horrible human being! To claim he'd "absolved" himself of responsibility for the victims! Not only was he driving incredibly fast, he was doing it while towing a car on a trailer!!! It is infuriating to hear such stupidity from someone who ruined so many lives that day!! God bless the victims and their families. Having no commentary while the victim's names were on screen was a class act! Very respectfully done!👍
He wasn't "horrible". The railway was at fault. They derailed two wheels after hitting a vehicle - that shouldn't have happened. The wheels should have stayed where they were. The guardrail should have covered the entire cliff. Gary was a victim here just as much as everyone else. And the railway walks away to kill more people in the future - as always.
@Neko Tengu He was driving too fast and he fell asleep at the wheel. Of course it was his fault. If he had been driving sensibly and not fallen asleep none of it would have happened. Were there other things that could have been improved by the railway, yes but the main person to blame in all this is Gary. He crashed due to his own careless behaviour and people died and were injured as a result. Gary was a victim of his own stupidity and that is why he was sent to prison.
@@LadyCatFelineTheSeventh I wouldn't describe Gary as a victim, his choices and overconfidence led to him driving recklessly and ultimately caused him to crash. What happened after however was entirely beyond his control. The railway should have anticipated that something like this could occur, that a tired driver falls asleep, that someone lose's control in the rain or any other random traffic accident that can occur on a busy motorway. There should have something to prevent vehicles ending up on the railway line.
I've owned a Land Rover Defender TD5 for nearly 11 years and I can say he wasn't driving incredibly fast but towing a trailer he would have been limited to 60mph. I do think that his lack of sleep was a major factor in this incident. I remember after this happened large concrete blocks were placed where road bridges crossed railway lines to prevent this tragedy happening again.
My partner at the time had a link to the Insurance investigation and so I got to hear the inside information. They found Gary's Land Rover with the windows down, the cold air turned to full blast and the stereo volume wound up. It was so obvious that he was struggling to keep awake and that he knew it. Unfortunatley there are people like him who just go through life blaming everyone and everything else except for them self.
I heard it was (and probably still is) the highest amount ever paid out on a motor vehicle insurance claim in the UK. Somewhere in the region of £20 million, if I remember correctly.
I remember that happening, and there was a whole series of bad train crashes in the same period. There was 4 or 5 in a 10 year span, this being one of them. Ladbrook Grove and others, all over the country. Rail gauge fracturing was the culprit for some and Railtrack had to replace much of the East Coast Mainline. The last 20 years have been much safer on UK rails. Great show again, and you could make a series of these.
@@williamredfern5504 Life's a bit harsh, it was more of an accident by a reckless wanker than a planned thing. His sentence was lenient though, agreed.
Yes, after the railways were privatised in the mid-90s, Railtrack cut corners and put profits before safety. The main examples of this being Hatfield in 2000 and Potters Bar in 2002, both within a few miles of each other. The former was caused by a cracked rail, which led to nationwide speed restrictions, the latter by poorly maintained points. By unlucky coincidence, Class 91 locomotive number 91023 was involved in both the Hatfield and Great Heck disasters; although it was the Class 82 Driving Van Trailer that struck the Land Rover.
The opening commentary perfectly describes the 1977 Tenerife Disaster. The chain of events which led to the accident seems like something out of a bad 1970s TV movie, yet it was real.
I wonder if he's now one of those 'vaccines turn you gay, cancer isn't real, the Earth is flat and the world is ran by Lizard Jewish Cabal' morons. Like for some reason if you told me he went full conspiracy bellend I would believe you.
I think the “buzz” of sleep deprivation is something that multiple people are into. My mom was like that; she often stayed up all night working on investing and several times told us she kind of enjoyed the feeling. I have no clue what would be fun about it. Thankfully she didn’t drive!
I've worked shifts/rotations right from being 19, both in the military and as a civvy. The one thing I can categorically say about both careers is that being deprived of sleep has never, and still doesn't, give me a buzz lol especially now I've hit the "Big 4-0"... Your Mum sounds like it works for her though, so I'm certainly not judging. Definitely agree about the driving/operating heavy machinery though lol
You can get a small euphoric high that lasts a few hours if you stay up through the initial tiredness. Not everyone experiences this or all the time. This feeling is often followed by a fatigue that can offer very deep and restful sleep. This kind of living only really works if you have a very flexible schedule.
I dont understand the "buzz" of sleep deprivation, ive had it before and its horrible. I do a lot of driving for work and as soon as I start to feel tired, I pull over at the next services and have a kip for 10-15 mins, I've stupidly driven when severely tired when younger and vowed to never do it again, it's scary to think how tired youd have to be to actually stop worrying about how tired you were and just close your eyes
Sounds like Type 2 Bipolar. Hypomania causes a feeling of, and sometimes a true belief in the need for less sleep. It can also have the effects of feeling euphoric, increased activity levels (like talking on the phone for hours into the night before feeling the need to drive for hours), increased confidence (in socializing, in one's beliefs and in one's actions), and it's often more noticeable to the people around than it is to the person experiencing it. It's relatively common, and if he was undiagnosed, he would have likely believed this to be his "normal". I'm not diagnosing him over the internet, but uncontrolled mental health issues would be the first thing I'd investigate.
I think it was also known as the *"Great Heck"* disaster; Not because it was a "perfect storm of bad luck" but because it literally happened near a place _called_ Great Heck which was just asking for trouble.
I could've understood if he e.g. had said that the guilt over what happened would never leave him, however, he had to try to forgive himself to be able to cope with continuing his life. But him still claiming he didn't fall asleep, and all the other crap stuff you quoted him saying... I've heard of rhinoceroses more sensitive than him. He makes it sound as if even if he somehow managed to do it all over a second time, he still wouldn't blame any lives lost on himself.
Wow Hart sounds like real empathic and gentle soul! Real salt of the earth kind of man! (yes that was sarcasm). Shot in the dark there where suspensions he was intoxicated but the Crown could never prove it since at the time the police didn't think about running a tox screen on him?
Maybe i'm being cynical, but the vehicle drivers actions (talking for hours, little or no sleep, recklessly towing at high speed and lapse into drowsiness) says to me he was "high" on something more than coffee and "life" (add your preferred stimulant).
I live in the US and have listened to quite a few 999 call recordings from the UK and it’s astounding how calm and polite the operators always are. Listen to some 911 recordings from the US and the operators are assholes
it seems to be a mixed bag. theyhave good emergency call operators and bad ones. I would guess that they just don't pay them well enough to be picky. I think it's a job that should be well paid - it's really important that it's done well, and it's probably quite emotionally challenging.
I actually know one and from them I've heard that there's a surprising amount of calls where you *have* to be loud and direct just for them to get the information they need so they can send the appropriate response. Plus the shifts that they have is almost nonsense. They have a rotating schedule where it's 12 hour shifts and depending on the country, it can vary from every three months to every three *weeks* you go on a day schedule or a night schedule.
Another train crash that might be worth considering happened in Germany in the late 1990s, possibly between Hannover and Bremen. My girlfriend of the time was on the train just before that one. One wheel came apart, driving a strip of metal into the carriage and derailed the whole train. The incident has been covered before in a tv doco, but the story might suit the format of this channel.
Morning Mr Raven. i couldn't sleep so actually watched this about 3.30am. I remember this case very well, and for sure he was a very odd character. Nicely put together as always. Thanks for your efforts.
Worth mentioning the Intercity 225 that crashed at Selby had been involved in the Hatfield Disaster (the crash that forced the government to dissolve Railtrack and set up National Rail) a year prior and freight train driver Steve Dunn's son also became a driver, but for London Underground. Disaster Breakdown also did a vid on this that is worth checking out.
Only the locomotive, then numbered 91023, at the rear of the train was in both accidents. It survived both and was renumbered due to concerns from some staff.
American here. Less than two minutes into the video and I have already spotted a major problem brewing. British law (about which I am unfamiliar) aside, the driver of the Land Rover was already being negligent before he crashed. For those who haven't seen one in person, a Land Rover Defender is a short wheelbase vehicle, coming in at (from what I have researched at least) 110"- just slightly longer than the 93.4" of a Jeep TJ series Wrangler of the same era. These short wheelbase vehicles are prone to being pushed by a loaded trailer when braking, especially if the trailer is not equipped with brakes of its own and is carrying a heavy load. You can lock all four of the tow vehicle's wheels up during braking, and the trailer will still attempt to continue moving in the direction it was last pointed. All other factors which led to him crashing aside, Gary Hart should never even have been behind the wheel with that much weight in tow unless his trailer was equipped with working brakes. Even then, towing another trailered vehicle can get dodgy if the tow vehicle is forced to make an emergency stop-or, in Gary's case, finds itself weaving back and forth on the motorway. No mention is made in the video as to whether or not his trailer was equipped with brakes, but I presume such wasn't the case. My point is, the Land Rover was already in a dangerous configuration even before it left Gary's house. This could have been reason enough for the authorities to hold him responsible for the final outcome of his crash. In the USA, laws regarding trailer towing in many states are rather lax, and you see some truly scary situations on the motorway from time to time. I'd be curious what the UK's Ministry Of Transport would say about this subject.
I had to learn all these things when taking my driver's license. Given Hart's driving and attitude I'd guess he clipped *his* license off the back of a cereal box.
A trailer carrying a car and being towed by another car would be of such weight in relation to the towing vehicle that in the UK it is legally required to have brakes but there is no official testing of car trailers to check that the brakes work correctly. The maximum allowed speed of this combination on a motorway is 60mph. None of this is very relevant if the driver is not properly awake. The vehicle on the front of the passenger train was not a locomotive but a luggage van with a driver's cab at the front, that looks similar to a locomotive but does not have motors. There was some debate about whether an actual locomotive, which is much heavier, would have stayed on the rails after the collision with the car. The locomotive was pushing the train from behind; it was very little damaged in the crash and was repaired and put back in service. Certain newspapers demanded that it be scrapped for reasons of emotional correctness, but I don't remember them offering to pay for the building of a replacement.
@TechNik The brakes on the trailer would have been simple drum brakes there just there to giving assistance to the towing vehicle. At 60 mph there will help with slowing down but be next to useless in stopping & completely ineffective once going down the embankment
@@zetectic7968 The brakes on UK trailers for use with cars and small vans are operated by the existence of compressive force in the tow coupling, that is if the towing vehicle brakes and the momentum of the trailer is trying to keep pushing it forwards. The harder the trailer pushes on the towing vehicle the harder the trailer brakes come on. This applies right down to a standstill. This means that the braking performance of a car (when it is going forwards) is only slightly degraded by the towing of even a very heavy trailer. To allow reversing the trailer brakes are made in such a way that they do not work if the trailer is moving backwards.
TechNick, A Defender of that time, especially a long wheelbase 110, would have been a commonly used tow vehicle for that sort of trailer and load combination. I appreciate that in the USA you would expect to use something bigger and heavier but the chances are that it would not be able to drive it very successfully, even without a trailer, on many of the country roads we have in the UK.
I've just been reading about Harts insurers a Belgian company called Fortis , the claim is the UK's largest motor vehicle insurance claim around £50 million. Hart had an unlimited third party insurance on his policy , Fortis have assets of £250 Billion but only paid out £1.5 million of the approximately £50 million because they had insured their costs above £1.5 million with a German re insurer company, so they will pick up the bulk of the payouts. The Raven's Eye videos are on my must watch list 👍
What a piece of work Gary Hart is "nobody was killed by the train hitting my car, they were killed by the crash caused by the derailment that was caused by the train hitting my car so therefore it isn't my fault" If mental gymnastics was an Olympic sport he'd take the gold. After hearing his radio interview, I am no convinced when he exclaimed "the train just went through the front of my Land Rover" he was only concerned about his car being destroyed and nothing more.
i don't live too far from here, i was only 3 at the time and my primary school teacher lived in the house next to where the freight train came to rest. waking up, looking out the window, and witnessing the driver dead in the cab gave her severe PTSD. she didn't teach for a few months and eventually had to sell the house and move away
I guess your teacher is one of the unseen victims in tragedies like this. It must be hard for the survivors, first responders, witnesses, crime scene cleaners and many more. I hope your teacher is doing better these days, wherever she is.
Great video, that guy is a heartless asshole should have being charged with murder it was only a matter of time before he killed an innocent person, chilling chain of events 😔
now he probably would be charged with ''causing death by dangerous driving'' or similar, with bigger sentences. Pathetic sentence he got and out in 10 minutes- disgrace.
I remember this the morning it happened, as it was featured on BBC Breakfast. I glanced at the television as they showed the picture from the motorway, clearly showing the tyre tracks made by his Land Rover and trailer. Instantly, it was obvious that he'd fallen asleep. The route was across a sideways slope. With a large car on a trailer, the towing vehicle had to have kept pulling all teh way to the drop to the railway. Any loss of speed of the towing vehicle, would havce resulted in the trailer sliding sideways, trying to jacknife. The tracks showed no deviation of this sort. He did not wake up enough to react until over the brow.
Story time. Once upon a time, there was a train driver, who thought he didn't need much sleep. One day, he went to work, very tired, having been awake the whole night before. He was on foot, he was walking a bit irregularly along the pavement, but just managed to open his eyes before he bumped into the odd lamp post. He got in his train, and commenced his journey. About half way along his journey, the driver was so tired, he dozed off. His train went through a red light, and de railed at a set of points that the red light was protecting. The train ploughed into a Land Rover on an adjacent road, being driven by a person called Gary. Luckily Gary survived, but 2 members of his family, and an "internet acquaintance" died instantly. Miraculously the train driver survived. On being questioned in court, the train driver said "I believe in fate, also at the point of impact, no one was killed".
If you take video recommendations, I would mention the stardust nightclub fire that happened in Dublin, Republic of Ireland in 1981 and killed about 30 people. And sadly, there still has not been full justice for the victims even after all this time. Great job on the video, keep up the good work!
You should do a video on the 1989 train wreck in San Bernardino. It's one of a few horrifying incidents that happened on the train line there, but I think it's the most interesting.
A very unfortunate series of events, which would have been prevented if Mr Hart hadn't left home without getting some sleep. As you said, the death toll was only 10 because of the time of day. I think another reason is because of the sturdiness of the steel-bodied carriages. In decades gone by, wooden-bodied carriages have allowed accident death tolls to be much higher, e.g. Harrow & Wealdstone in 1952.
The Harrow & Wealdstone disaster was the last disaster in the UK involving steam traction which was being withdrawn at the time This no doubt made the disaster more deadly with boiler explosions burning coals falling on wooden coaches which it was so deadly.
@@ANDREWLEONARDSMITH I don't think there were any boiler explosions, nor did any of the coaches catch fire. They did catch fire in Quintinshill, partly fuelled by the gas canisters underneath that had just been refilled.
03:43 There was no engine car at the front of this train. It had just one engine/locomotive, at the rear, which was the norm for southbound IC225 trains. The front vehicle on this particular train was a Driving Van Trailer, an unpowered coach with a driver's cab at one end, lots of van space for luggage, parcels etc, and a corridor connection to the first passenger coach.
Also having been on the M62 recently, you say a flimsy wooden barrier, but I know plenty of spots on the 62 where if you are doing 70, or let's be honest, more than 70 as most people seem to do, you aren't going to be stoppe by a crash barrier at all, and if a 40 tonner is involve, you are not going to stop that with a single barrier at all. EDIT: I keep thinking of the 1997 Southall crash with how the collision was described, and the 1988 Clapham Junction crash as well, I'm not sure if you've done one on either, I found a docu about the Southall crash a while back but it was only about half of the whole program though, so hoping you can cover the Southall crash since that's not one that's as well known as Ladbroke Grove or Hatfield
Great content as always. A lot of your content is of disasters I’ve never heard about so it’s always great(the content, not the disaster of course) to watch
2:20. The train wasn't formed of a front and rear engine. It was being pushed by a locomotive at the rear end (Class 90), while the front car was a DVT - a driving cab made to look like a Class 90 so the whole train can be driven in either direction, but with no engine inside it.
The same thing happened like this in Bourbonnais, Illinois and Glendale, California, where trains derailed after striking vehicles in front of them and colliding with oncoming trains or parked trains.
Truly an absolute tragedy and freak chain of events. Clearly Mr Hart at fault for the root cause. Though clearly the crash barrier was inadequate, and a simlar or worse accident could have occured due to a vehicle leaving the carriageway at this point for any number of reasons. I notice that in the years after this accident, similar barriers and bridges were beefed up all accross the UK road network. I think that fact proves that the highway authorities recognise there were deficiencies on their part that needed to be put right too
A final factor in the list of things that went wrong in this crash was the train that hit the landrover was traveling south. The class 91, AKA Intercity 225 only has a power car at one end, and a driving van trailer at the other end which is lighter in weight as it doesn't have the power transformers and motors aboard. On these train sets that trailer is always at the London end of the train. Had the train been coming North, the heavier power car would have hit the landrover and possibly not left the rails at all.
Correct, the DVT is about half the weight of a locomotive and as in the Polmont crash can be derailed by hitting a 400kg cow, I have often wondered if the train would have derailed if the 90ton locomotive had struck the Land Rover rather than the DVT. Another issue would be that in a collision you have the extra weight of the locomotive at the rear crushing the coaches.
My big sister who died 18 months ago used to out with the guy who lived in the house by the side of the tracks and the class 66 ended up in his garden and it was his caravan that was wrecked his garage was also demolished, the electric loco in this crash had also been involved in the crash at Hatfield.
There's one other factor that always gets missed that played a big part here. Engineering works in the area packed up just a few days before. While that part of the line was being worked on there'd been a speed restriction. If that restriction had been in place the timing of the accident would have been at least a good few seconds different & wouldn't have been anything like as severe.
What an extremely narcissistic man, although, he may be making those statements to convince himself that he was not guilty as something like this would leave most people with crushing guilt. I have heard of people comitting suicide from causing catastrophies such as this..
There is an error at 2:20. There was no "front and rear trailing engine." At the rear of the train was a very heavy and powerful Class 91 electric locomotive. Its job was to provide all of the train's power. At the front of the train was a driving van trailer, or DVT. This has a cab, in which sat a driver, driving the train and controlling from the front of the train the locomotive at the rear of the train. Because the DVT was not a locomotive, it lacked transmission, motors, pantograph, etc.. The foremost vehicle of the train was therefore very light, and this was a crucial contributing factor to the derailment. That is why the error at 2:20 is important.
We had a similar accident here in the US around 2005ish, involving a commuter train. Some mentally ill guy who wanted to pass on parked his SUV at a grade crossing, only to regret it and flee before the train hit his car. The crash was pretty bad, if I remember correctly the derailed cab car hit a UP MOW train on a siding as well. These train wrecks are always really frustrating situations, they cause a lot of damage and 9 times out of 10 the incident was entirely preventable.
A similar accident occurred in England where a man parked his car on a level crossing before the barriers came down. The train was derailed with ensuing casualties.
Excellent, as usual! :) - you really should be working in broadcasting, your voice, intonation and compassionate commentary is really well suited for it, methinks!
I live just a few miles away from here, and I remember my dad mentioning it when it happened (I was only 9 at the time), but I had no idea how bad it was until now. Strange the things that pop up in your youtube feed.
I remember the dead train drivers son walking hand in hand with another rail worker going to the spot where his father died, it was televised for some reason and totally heart breaking.
One other detail. The train involved was a class 91 BR train. The train set has a locomotive at one end and a Driver Van Trailing (DVT) at the other. This locomotive was running a different way to normal. The DVT carries a lot less mass than the powered locomotive. If the train had been running with the locomotive ahead, the weight on the rails would have meant the loco would have been less like to derail and the points would certainly have not made it derail catastrophically. Good video though. Hart can rot in hell IMO as he’s obviously a callous bastard.
Live not too far from Great Heck, and used to work near there in Pollington and about half mile from the ECML, could clearly hear the 91s and Azumas. A few people who worked there at the time remember hearing the sirens and seeing the helicopters. Still go over that bridge and past the Memorial. RIP to the victims.
2:20 Intercity 225 sets are a class 91 electric locomotive at one end and a mark 4 Driving Van Trailer at the other. At Great Heck, the DVT was leading and the locomotive was on the rear of the formation.
There's a Bananatarian myth out there that self forgiveness is the key to healing. I would say that atonement and the forgiveness of others carries far more weight.
My question is why was there not a crash barrier along that stretch of road, whether or not it was a motorway? The point is it is high speed road and crash barriers should be mandatory no matter what the terrain is either side of the carriageway.
Because of this accident, all railway overbridge road crash barriers were extended well back from the railway. Later on, the crash barrier height had two barriers, one atop the other.
I recall driving that section a few months later and wondering why the barriers and track protection that was installed, presumably approved in the plans, had been left somewhat incomplete in terms of offering full proof protection. Not so much for the train line as for any vehicle having any sort of moving event, no matter what the cause, being protected from an accident heading down a long and steep embankment. Given that the motorway, as I recall, had only recently been completed and commissioned the unfortunate lack of a few feet of Armco barriers did not seem to attract much attention in the media. There must have been a number of people who were happy enough that Hart's conduct and demeanour was enough to make him the primary focus of how the incident came about.
Government trying to save money I guess. There was a crash near me a few years ago where a guy came off a dual carriageway when he fell asleep and impaled himself on a wooden fence. Another 5 meters and he'd have hit a barrier, which just makes you wonder why the whole stretch didn't have one
Really good video, however you made the mistake that most people do when 'combining' speeds to determining the force of the impact. The force of the impact is only relevant to the speed that any vehicle was travelling, the other vehicle has no bearing on it. If you are travelling at 100mph and come to a sudden stop, the force is 100mph, regardless of what you hit, or what speed it was travelling.
The "with a combined speed" thing is an illusion of the imagination. Both trains only stopped, they did not gain backwards momentum as a result of the impact. They didn't bounce off each other and go in reverse direction, rather the energy was translated into violent disintegration, i.e. they crashed. Put 5 apples and 5 bananas into a blender and turn it on high for 1 minute. How many hybrid apples/banana fruits have you got?
