Feature History
GREG MORSE discusses the overspeed derailment at Maidstone East in 1993 and the implications for drug and alcohol testing today
Borrowed time. That’s what British Rail was on as 1993’s summer faded into autumn.
Soon its passenger businesses would be moving over to private operators, with the freight companies following suit, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. However, there was nothing particularly slow about 6M57, the 0120 freight from Dover Town Yard to Willesden Brent Sidings, as it powered through the early hours of September 6.
The train was hauled by 47288, a later-build ‘47’, now flying the colours of BR’s Railfreight Distribution sub-sector, which had been created to bring its Speedlink, Freightliner and international traffic under one umbrella.
The trailing load of 907 tons - a van containing chipboard, vans and flats carrying steel cable, along with a few empties - was made up of air-braked bogie vehicles, a far cry from the short-wheelbase four-wheeled wagons of the older railway, whose ‘hunting’ had led to many derailments in the 1960s, including fatal ones such as the incident at Thirsk on July 31 1967 (RAIL 831).
The driver of 6M57, Graham Barnes, had arrived at Dover Priory by taxi and booked on at 0028, before walking out into the night to find ‘288’, which he drove light to Dover Town, where it was hooked onto the train.
Satisfied with his running brake test, Barnes took the formation out of the yard and onto the South Eastern Main Line, along the coast, through Folkestone and on towards Ashford. Here, it ran alongside the M22, through Charing, Harrietsham and Hollingbourne before reaching the outskirts of Maidstone.
Reverse curves
In the box at Maidstone East, the lights were on and the blinds were drawn. There had been a station here since 1874, built by the London Chatham and Dover Railway, initially as the terminus of its line from Otford, to which an extension to Ashford was added ten years later.
For Up trains, the line speed was 80mph, but Class 6 freights were required to run at two-thirds of that figure (53mph). All permanent speed restrictions (PSRs) also had to be obeyed.
At Bearsted, where the line falls at 1-in-60, the PSR was 50mph, which then dropped to 35mph, both restrictions being fitted with Automatic Warning System (AWS) ramps to provide an in-cab reminder to the driver, a BR innovation brought in after the Nuneaton accident of 1975 (see panel).
A 25mph PSR ran through the level lines that curved to the right at the station, being reached - slalom-like - via a left-hand curve into Wheeler Street Tunnel, a sharper right-hand curve and then another left-hander into Week Street Tunnel.
At 0212, the track circuit indicators in the station area showed occupied. The signaller walked over to the window and peeped through the blinds. There were s
