The Rail Accident Investigation Branch has released its report into an overspeed incident at Spital Junction in Peterborough back in May 2023.

The 09:54 Sunderland to London Kings Cross service on the 4th May 2023 was passing Spital Junction at around 1 pm at ‘excessive speed’.

The max speed at this junction, which is north of Peterborough station, is initially 30mph but reduces down to 25mph.

However, data recordings from the Grand Central train show that the train went through the set of points at this junction at 66mph – this caused a sudden sideways movement of the carriages, causing some passengers to suffer minor injuries.

The investigation found that the overspeeding was caused by the driver not reacting to the signal indication that was shown on the approach to the junction.

The driver’s expectation was that the train would be routed straight through, but the points had in fact been set for them to take a diverging route which had a lower speed.

This isn’t the first overspeed incident at this location, one happened in 2013 and another 13 months prior to the Grand Central incident in April 2022 but this time involved a Lumo train.

You can read more on this incident by clicking here.

The RAIB has said that Grand Central did not identify the risk associated with the signal in its risk assessment, they also say that Network Rail‘s reliability regime does not include any means to manage the degradation of LED lights.

RAIB has made four new recommendations as a result of this investigation.

The first recommendation is for Grand Central to review and amend its training and competence management processes to provide its drivers with the necessary non-technical skills or additional strategies to manage the risk encountered at signals which may show different aspects to those usually encountered.

The second recommendation asks Network Rail and train operators to review the processes by which they derive, share and implement safety learning from accidents and incidents that involve shared risks across organisations.

The third recommendation is for RSSB to review the standards specifying the relative brightness of main aspects and junction indicators on signals to understand the effects on conspicuity of the complete signal up to the maximum distance at which a signal is required to be readable, to minimise the risk of drivers not correctly reading signals.

The fourth recommendation, arising from an observation, is for Network Rail to manage the risk of a driver not seeing a route indication because of the gradual reduction in light output of LED signals, which occurs over time.

“An underlying factor behind this incident was that neither Network Rail nor the East Coast Main Line train operators effectively controlled the risk of overspeeding at Spital Junction both at the time the protecting signal’s operation was changed in 2014 and following the previous incident in 2022.

“During the 2022 incident a train crossed the 30 mph limited junction at around 76 mph; a speed at which it is likely that some wheels lifted off the rails and close to a speed that could have caused the train to overturn. Thankfully a serious accident had been very narrowly avoided but thirteen months later, in this incident, the same junction was crossed at 66 mph in similar circumstances. This, once again, reinforces why learning from previous accidents and incidents and taking effective action in response to them is a vital means of improving safety and avoiding repeating mistakes of the past. The fact that the management of risks associated with an incident may be shared between more than one party does not alter this.”

Andrew Hall, Chief Inspector of Rail Accidents