On 6 January 1968, a low-loader transporter carrying a 120-ton electrical transformer was struck by a British Rail express train on a recently installed automatic level crossing at Hixon, Staffordshire, England.

The collision resulted in 11 deaths and 45 people injured, and led to improvements in signage around automatic level crossings.

Background

In the 1950s, British Railways found that the cost of manning 2,400 level crossings had risen past £1 million per annum, with some locations seeing a tenfold increase. In the post-war labour market it was often difficult to recruit crossing keepers, the job itself being a responsible but rather dull occupation. In addition, manually operated crossings often caused long delays to road traffic because of the need to close the gates and clear the distant signal before the approaching train reached it.

In October 1956, senior members of Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate (HMRI) embarked on a fact-finding trip to the Netherlands, Belgium and France to investigate the practice of automating level crossings. Their subsequent report recommended the introduction of automatically operated crossings with half-barriers, known as AHBs. This was projected to give considerable cost savings through the withdrawal of crossing keepers and would also speed up the flow of road traffic; the crossing being closed for less than a minute as opposed to 3 or 4 minutes at staffed crossings. Incidentally, Hixon was only from the pioneering installation at Spath.

Low-loader movements

thumb|left|The site of the accident in 1995. The level crossing has now been replaced with a bridge with the sections of road either side of the railway kept as cul-de-sacs.

On 6 January 1968, a 120-ton electrical transformer was to be moved from the English Electric works at Stafford to a storage depot at the disused RAF Hixon airfield. The airfield was on Station Road, adjacent to the Manchester branch of the West Coast Main Line and approximately north of Colwich Junction.

To carry out this move a huge transporter vehicle, long and with a 32-wheeled trailer, was chartered. It had a gross weight of 162 tons, was impelled by a tractor unit at each end, and had a crew of five. In charge of the vehicle was B. H. Groves, who occupied the leading cab. The journey was not an unusual procedure as six other abnormal loads belonging to the English Electric Company had passed over the automatic crossing in the preceding months.

The transporter and its police escort left Stafford at approximately 09:30 on the morning of Saturday 6 January. Although Hixon was only from Stafford, the nature of the load meant that it needed to travel south out of the town and then along a somewhat laborious route north via the M6 motorway, the A34 to Stone and finally the A51 to Hixon. This route had been approved by the Ministry of Transport, but the map of the route made no mention of the level crossing at Hixon; the description of the route in the Order merely ended with "Weston to junc class III road approx past Hixon turn left class III road turn left access road to English Electric Works and destination".

The haulage company

The inquiry identified the directors of the haulage company, Robert Wynn and Sons Ltd, as being chiefly to blame. It transpired that, on 8 November 1966, one of their transporters had narrowly avoided disaster when it became grounded on an automatic crossing at Leominster. A catastrophe was only avoided after its driver violently revved the engine and let the clutch in.

Wynn's had pointed out their concern at the short warning time given in a letter to British Railways, but received a terse reply from the assistant general manager of the Western Region, and therefore did not press the matter further. BR's reply to them said, "I must emphasise ... that the hazard was of your firm's making and it is fortunate that it was not more than a hazard". This was described as being "remarkable for its arrogance and lack of insight". costing £2 million.

Two carriages involved in the collision (Mark 1 Tourist Second Opens 4963 and 4973) are now preserved. Marshalled behind the Restaurant Kitchen Buffet car, they derailed, coming to rest alongside the wrecked transformer, receiving light damage. The undamaged Mark 2 TSO 5191 is also preserved.

In 2017, a book The Hixon Railway Disaster was published by Richard Westwood, whose father Jack Westwood was a BR signal technician at Leominster who phoned the signalman to set the distant and home signals to danger thus avoiding an earlier (1966) accident with a slow Wynn's transporter. He highlighted friction between railway managers and HMRI on fears expressed by the former regarding potential safety hazards, and lack of anticipation of the potential hazard from slow-moving heavy vehicles even after the Leominster near-miss. Likewise, Fraser Pithie has criticised the role of the HMRI which was 'in the driving seat' with the installation of AHB (automatic half barriers), not BR. Colonel McMullen had stated in 1957 that if they were adopted "the principle must be recognised that it is the responsibility of the individual to protect himself from the hazards of the railway in the same way as from the hazards of the road". Colonel Reed of the HMRI was put in charge of AHB introduction in 1961, and he opposed the provision of telephones or signal protection. But some BR managers still ensured that a telephone was provided at AHB crossings, and Hixon had a telephone.

, the former airfield continues to be the site of various industrial units, known as the Hixon Airfield Industrial Estate.

Commemorations

On 6 January 2018, on the fiftieth anniversary of the disaster, a memorial stone in Hixon village churchyard was dedicated to those who died in the crash. Another memorial stone is by the railway bridge close to the site of the accident.

On 19 August 2021, CrossCountry train 220009 was named Hixon at Stafford railway station in memory of the accident.

thumb|220009 Hixon at [[Bristol Temple Meads]]

See also

  • Level crossings in the United Kingdom
  • 2015 Halifax train crash
  • Dalfsen train crash

References

Further reading

  • Staffordshire Past Track – an illustrated page about the crash
  • Level crossing telephones – an illustrated page by a British Rail engineer involved in the development of these telephones
  • Accident at Hixon on 6 January 1968 on Railways Archive
  • Tragedy on the West Coast Main Line: Defining moment in level crossing use on The Railway Hub