This is London website on 3 March 2007
The driver who survived the Cumbria rail crash has revealed for the first time how he desperately tried to stop the train after coming round from being knocked unconscious.
Iain Black, 46, told friends how he was catapulted out of his seat and hit his head on the roof when the Virgin Pendolino 'tilting' train hit faulty points at 93mph before being derailed and plunging down an embankment at Grayrigg, near Kendal.
With blood pouring down his face, Mr Black - a former policeman - came round, crawled back on to his seat and applied the emergency brakes in an attempt to avert the accident, in which Margaret Masson, 84, from Glasgow, died and 100 people were injured.
He told friends visiting him in the Royal Preston Hospital: "I am so sorry somebody died. I did my best to stop but there was nothing I could do."
In fact, the brave driver was unaware that as he tried to apply the brakes to the packed train, its automatic braking system had activated after a brake pipe was severed by the rogue points, which had nuts and bolts missing from track stretcher bars connecting sections of rail.
Thursday 8 March 2007
Repair backlog
Telegraph online 4 March 2007
Only weeks before the fatal Cumbrian rail crash, Network Rail was struggling to cope with a backlog of repairs, the largest rail union said last night.
Virgin rail crash in Cumbria: Network rail resources Network Rail denies there was a reduction in maintenance personnel.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport union blames the crisis on a failure by Network Rail to fill vacancies over two years - resulting in a 10 per cent cut in "front-line" technicians and track workers.
With numbers down on the 400 staff the RMT believes are needed, it says the backlog of essential maintenance work in the North-West mounted.
An RMT spokesman, John Tilley, said: "Network Rail are running at what they call deficit manning levels as the norm. The result is that the maintenance people are so stretched, and a backlog has been created."
Network Rail denied that there had been any reduction in the number of maintenance personnel or that a significant backlog had developed.
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A spokesman said: "We are making efficiency savings of 31 per cent between 2004 and 2009. There may be a couple of vacancies in the North-West, but this is not a picture I recognise. I am not aware of any particular staffing issues and there is no national policy of natural wastage. We have a to-do list, but nothing I would recognise as a backlog."
Only weeks before the fatal Cumbrian rail crash, Network Rail was struggling to cope with a backlog of repairs, the largest rail union said last night.
Virgin rail crash in Cumbria: Network rail resources Network Rail denies there was a reduction in maintenance personnel.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport union blames the crisis on a failure by Network Rail to fill vacancies over two years - resulting in a 10 per cent cut in "front-line" technicians and track workers.
With numbers down on the 400 staff the RMT believes are needed, it says the backlog of essential maintenance work in the North-West mounted.
An RMT spokesman, John Tilley, said: "Network Rail are running at what they call deficit manning levels as the norm. The result is that the maintenance people are so stretched, and a backlog has been created."
Network Rail denied that there had been any reduction in the number of maintenance personnel or that a significant backlog had developed.
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A spokesman said: "We are making efficiency savings of 31 per cent between 2004 and 2009. There may be a couple of vacancies in the North-West, but this is not a picture I recognise. I am not aware of any particular staffing issues and there is no national policy of natural wastage. We have a to-do list, but nothing I would recognise as a backlog."
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