In early August, the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) published its official report into the accident on 5 November 2010 in which a concrete mixer hit the parapet of Warren Lane bridge and fell on to the 15.05 Guildford to Waterloo train, which had just left Oxshott station (see FEDORA Magazine, Spring 2011, p16). The investigators could find no previous example of a road vehicle falling from a bridge on to a moving train and concluded "This accident was therefore unusual if not unique."
The truck driver, Petru Achim, was in his first week of unaccompanied LGV driving, RAIB revealed. Speed was not a factor in the accident, but poor visibility was, decided the investigators, who noted that excessive vegetation growth obscured the end of the bridge from drivers. Surrey County Council conducts quarterly highway inspections along the road, but "weaknesses in the inspection process" meant that a missing reflective marker on the parapet end was repeatedly overlooked.
The same parapet had been hit on several occasions between 2003 and 2006, so, as the report states, "the most recent accident was neither an isolated nor an unforeseeable event"; nevertheless, other systemic failings led to the road and the bridge being assessed as low-risk in safety terms. Although some vegetation was cut back after the accident, RAIB called for "a more permanent solution" to discourage its regrowth (in fact, the trees were removed not to improve safety, but to allow a large road crane to remove the truck from the track).
The RAIB noted that "generally the train performed well when exposed to the extreme circumstances of this accident" - for example, all the seats remained attached, anti-graffiti film on the windows stopped the glass breaking up into dangerous fragments, and the fact that the roof did not completely collapse ensured the survival of the passenger who was directly under the point of impact. RAIB did not comment on the considerably greater risk to life that would have arisen had the truck struck a train running at the 70mph maximum line speed here, which is the case when Portsmouth expresses are diverted over the Oxshott line.
In conclusion the investigators recommended that "Surrey County Council, in consultation with Network Rail, should review the optimum means of protecting or marking the parapet ends at Bridge 11 (Warren Lane, Oxshott), and apply and maintain the chosen method." They observed, however: "To date, the parapet end marker has not been reinstated (July 2011) and Surrey County Council has not provided any other means of protecting or marking the parapet end."
The full report (no. 13/2011) can be downloaded from www.raib.gov.uk. After reading it, FEDORA members may well have comments of their own to make to our county council.