The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) has released its report into a near-miss between a rail grinding train and an empty passenger train in Leicestershire on 5th May 2021.

At about 05:29 hrs on Wednesday, 5th May 2021, a rail grinding train passed a signal at danger at Sileby Junction, between Leicester and Loughborough, resulting in a near-miss with an empty passenger train travelling in the opposite direction. The passenger train had cleared the junction less than 10 seconds before the rail grinding train reached it. Fortunately, there were no injuries or damage to either train, but the incident resulted in delays to several trains in the area.

The incident was caused by two factors:

• The driver did not control the train’s speed to be able to stop at the signal at danger, probably due to fatigue.
• Although the train made an automatic emergency brake application, this did not stop the train before it reached a point at which it could collide with another train. A probable underlying factor was the fatigue risk management processes used by the train operator.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch has also made four observations. Although these are not linked to the cause of the incident, they nevertheless had safety implications:

• there was no system-wide risk assessment to control the risk of overruns arising from the operation of non-standard vehicles on the national rail network;
• the train operator did not obtain safety-critical information about the driver when he joined the company.
• the remaining observations relate to industry processes for managing the operational and technical response to such incidents.

Recommendations

Two recommendations were made as a result the investigation.

• fatigue risk management;
• managing the risks of trains with lower braking rates passing signals at danger.

Three learning points were also identified:

• the use of napping as a fatigue mitigation;
• the importance of organisations sharing safety-critical information when employees move between companies;
• railway procedures for post-incident management.