If any of you have seen the news today im sure you will be aware of the Virgin train crash in Cumbria last night. Well here is a picture from my archives, the 21st August 2006 to be precise, taken here, which is only half a mile from the de-railment site (in the distance on the mid left of the pic you can just see the top of the overhead wire masts at the crash site) . Ive used both the section of line and the train involved many many times heading between Newcastle and Preston over the last few years, and this has to be my favourite bit of the journey anywhere on UK rails, with such outstanding scenery and fast curves.
Suffice to say the media frenzy erupted with allsorts of non-sensical speculation, mainly from people who know nothing about the technical aspects of railways or engineering, and much rubbish was quoted. Stupid questions and demands were being put on whatever people they could get to be interviewed, asking Richard Branson personally why all his trains don't have seat belts, why all the trains were not being taken out of service immediately, and any other sensationalist and emotive crap they could think of. I don't know why this annoys me, but it does . . . . perhaps its the fact that trains are so safe (i will still feel perfectly safe taking this same journey in a few weeks). Maybe its the fact that one tragic death overshadows the 10 that have occurred on the roads since the accident, or maybe its the "lets attack and blame someone as soon as possible" attitude they have with everything. No one knows exactly why whats happened has yet, and will not until the technical experts finish their investigation, weeks or months from now.
Ages ago (see "crossing the border", June 06) i was banging on about the safety of the mk4 coach. Well today i think is evidence enough of the excellent design, manufacturing and engineering of the Pendolino - looking at the pictures of wreckage its amazing so many people walked out - even the majority of windows didn't smash (including the drivers windscreen) and the majority of the carriages look to have remained structurally intact - impressive when according to my crude calculations it had a kinetic energy of 420million Newtons to dissipate in seconds. Testament indeed to the skills and importance of good engineering, which ultimately can be the difference between life and death. As a final point i was on this very same train (City of Glasgow) on this very stretch of line just 3 weeks ago on the 3rd Feb, and whilst being very bored sitting at Carlisle, below i took a pic of what the inside looked like before the accident, the exact same coach is labelled 1 and seen here, sitting in a field.
