WA signal passed at danger (S.P.A.D.), known in the United States and Canada as running a red light, is an event on the railway where a train passes a stop signal without authority. Where colour light signals are in use, a S.P.A.D. occurs when a train passes a red signal without authority, and where semaphore signals are used, a S.P.A.D. occurs when a train passes a signal in the 'on' position without authority.
WThe 1944 Ilford rail crash occurred on 16 January 1944 when, in darkness and dense fog, an express passenger train passed a signal at danger and collided with another passenger train that was stopped at Ilford railway station in Essex, England.
WThe 1958 Newark Bay rail accident occurred on September 15, 1958 in Newark Bay, New Jersey, United States, when a Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) morning commuter train, #3314, ran through a restricting and a stop signal, derailed, and slid off the open Newark Bay lift bridge. Both diesel locomotives and the first two coaches plunged into Newark Bay and sank immediately, killing 48 people and injuring the same number. A third coach, snagged by its rear truck (bogie), hung precariously off the bridge for two hours before it also toppled into the water. As the locomotive crew was killed, the cause of the accident was never determined nor reinvestigated.
WThe 1984 Eccles rail crash occurred on 4 December 1984 at Eccles, Greater Manchester, when an express passenger train collided at speed with the rear of a freight train of oil tankers. The driver of the express and two passengers were killed, and 68 people were injured. The cause of the accident was determined to be that the driver of the express train had passed a signal at danger.
WOn 21 April 2012 at 18:30 local time, two trains were involved in a head-on collision at Westerpark, near Sloterdijk, in the west of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Approximately 117 people were injured, one of whom later died in hospital. The collision is thought to have been caused by the driver of one of the trains having passed a red signal.
WThe Barendrecht train accident involved the collision between two freight trains on 24 September 2009 near Barendrecht, Netherlands. One of the drivers was killed, the other was seriously injured.
WThe Chatsworth train collision occurred at 4:22:23 p.m. PDT on Friday, September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The scene of the accident was a curved section of single track on the Metrolink Ventura County Line just east of Stoney Point. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigated the cause of the collision, the Metrolink train ran through a red signal before entering a section of single track where the opposing freight train had been given the right of way by the train dispatcher. The NTSB blamed the Metrolink train's engineer, 46-year-old Robert M. Sanchez, for the collision, concluding that he was distracted by text messages he was sending while on duty.
WThe Colwich rail crash occurred on the evening of Friday 19 September 1986 at Colwich Junction, Staffordshire, England. It was significant in that it was a high speed collision between two packed express trains. One driver was killed, but no passengers died because of the great strength of the rolling stock involved, which included examples of Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 coaches.
WOn the evening of 26 December 1962, cold weather and snow in and around Crewe had caused points to become frozen and trains were being detained at signals. About midway between Winsford and Crewe, the 13:30 Glasgow Central to London Euston Mid-Day Scot, hauled by an English Electric type 4 diesel, with 13 coaches and 500 passengers, was stopped at a signal but the driver found the telephone to Coppenhall Junction, the next signal box ahead, out of order. Seeing the next signal ahead he decided to proceed down towards it and use the telephone there, but too fast. In the darkness he failed to notice the 16:45 express from Liverpool Lime Street to Birmingham New Street, hauled by an electric locomotive with eight coaches with 300 passengers, standing on the line ahead and collided with it at about 20 mph (32 km/h).
WThe Cowden rail crash occurred on 15 October 1994, around 400 yards (365 m) southeast of Cowden Station in the English county of Kent. There was a head-on collision between two trains in heavy fog after a northbound train passed a signal at danger without authority and entered a single line section.
WThe Dagenham East rail crash was a railway accident on the London, Tilbury and Southend line of British Railways which occurred at Dagenham, United Kingdom.
WThe Friedewald train collision was a railway accident on 12 September 2009 in Saxony, Germany. It involved two steam hauled passenger trains of the narrow gauge heritage Radebeul–Radeburg railway. One hundred and twenty-one people were injured, four of them seriously. Substantial damage was sustained by the locomotives and rolling stock.
WOn 6 March 1989, two Class 303 commuter trains crashed on the Springburn branch of the North Clyde Line, just east of Bellgrove station in the East End of Glasgow, Scotland. Driver Mr. Hugh Kennan, aged 62 of Maryhill, and passenger Mr. Robert McCaffrey, aged 58, a retired rail worker from Scotstoun, died in the crash and 53 people were injured.
WOn 29 July 2013, two passenger trains were involved in a head-on collision at Granges-près-Marnand, Switzerland, killing one person and injuring 25 others.
WThe Halle train collision was a collision between two NMBS/SNCB passenger trains carrying a combined 250–300 people in Buizingen, in the municipality of Halle, Flemish Brabant, Belgium, on 15 February 2010. The accident occurred in snowy conditions at 08:28 CET (07:28 UTC), during rush hour, on railway line 96 (Brussels–Quévy) about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from Brussels between P-train E3678 from Leuven to Braine-le-Comte and IC-train E1707 from Quiévrain to Liège. A third train was able to come to a stop just in time. The collision killed 19 people and injured 171, making it the deadliest rail accident in Belgium in over fifty years.
WThe Harmelen train disaster was the worst railway accident in the history of the Netherlands on 8 January 1962. Harmelen, in the central Netherlands, is the location of a railway junction where a branch to Amsterdam leaves the Rotterdam to Utrecht line. It is common at high-speed junctions to avoid the use of diamond crossings wherever possible — instead a ladder crossing is employed where trains destined for the branch line cross over to the track normally employed for trains travelling in the opposite direction for a short distance before taking the branch line.
WThe Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash was a three-train collision at Harrow and Wealdstone station in Wealdstone, Middlesex during the morning rush hour of 8 October 1952. 112 were killed and 340 injured, 88 of these being detained in hospital, and it remains the worst peacetime rail crash in the United Kingdom but the second deadliest overall, surpassed only by the Quintinshill rail disaster of 1915 which killed 226.
WThe Herceghalom rail crash occurred on 1 December 1916 at 00:24 in the station of Herceghalom, Hungary, on the Budapest–Hegyeshalom line as a side collision of an express train running into a shunting passenger train. 69 people were killed. This is the deadliest train incident in Hungary.
WThe Hermalle-sous-Huy train collision was a collision between a passenger train and a freight train in Hermalle-sous-Huy, Belgium, on 5 June 2016. At least three people were killed and 36 others were injured, nine of them seriously.
WThe Hexthorpe rail accident occurred on 16 September 1887 at Hexthorpe railway platform some 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Doncaster on the South Yorkshire Railway line to Sheffield and Barnsley. The platform was situated within a block section between Hexthorpe Junction and Cherry Tree Lane and so had no signals of its own. The railway platform was a simple wooden structure on the Doncaster - bound line usually used for the collection of tickets from the many trains arriving in the town for the St. Leger race meeting.
WThe Hordorf train collision occurred on 29 January 2011, when a freight train and a passenger train collided near Hordorf in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany on the Magdeburg–Thale line. The passenger train derailed in the collision. Ten people were killed and 43 people were injured, some of them critically.
WThe Invergowrie rail accident happened at Invergowrie, Scotland on 22 October 1979. The accident killed 5 people and injured 51 others.
WThe Ladbroke Grove rail crash was a rail accident which occurred on 5 October 1999 at Ladbroke Grove in London, England, United Kingdom. With 31 people killed and 417 injured, it remains one of the worst rail accidents in 20th-century British history.
WOn the evening of 4 December 1957, two trains crashed in dense fog on the South Eastern main line near Lewisham in south-east London, causing the deaths of 90 people and injuring 173. An electric train to Hayes had stopped at a signal under the bridge, and the following steam train to Ramsgate crashed into it, destroying a carriage and causing the bridge to collapse onto the steam train. The bridge had to be completely removed; it was over a week before the lines under the bridge were reopened, and another month before the bridge was rebuilt and traffic allowed over it.
WLuton railway station is a railway station located in the town centre of Luton, Bedfordshire, England. The station is about three minutes' walk from The Mall Shopping Centre. It is situated on the Midland Main Line and is operated by Thameslink.
WMannheim Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in Mannheim in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is the second largest traffic hub in southwestern Germany after Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof, with 658 trains a day, including 238 long-distance trains. It is also a key station in the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn. 100,000 passengers embark, disembark or transfer between trains at the station each day. The station was modernised in 2001. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 2 station.
WThe 1987 Maryland train collision occurred at 1:30 pm on January 4, 1987, on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor main line. The site of the crash was in the Chase community in eastern Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, at Gunpow Interlocking, about 18 miles (29 km) northeast of Baltimore. Amtrak train 94, the Colonial, traveling north from Washington, D.C., to Boston, crashed into a set of Conrail locomotives running light, and which had fouled (entered) the mainline. Train 94's speed at the time of the collision was estimated at about 108 miles per hour (174 km/h). Fourteen passengers on the Amtrak train were killed, as well as the Amtrak engineer and lounge car attendant.
WOn February 16, 1996, a MARC commuter train collided with Amtrak's Capitol Limited passenger train in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, killing three crew and eight passengers on the MARC train; a further eleven passengers on the same train and fifteen passengers and crew on the Capitol Limited were injured. Total damage was estimated at $7.5 million.
WThe Nidareid train disaster was a train collision on 18 September 1921 on the Trondhjem–Støren Line railway line, between the stations of Marienborg and Skansen in Trondheim, Norway. The accident occurred the day after the inauguration of the new line to Trondheim, Dovre Line, and one of the trains involved was the inaugural train returning from the celebrations in Trondheim. Six people were killed in the crash, the first serious passenger train accident in Norway.
WNorton Bridge is a village in Staffordshire, England. Until May 2003 it was served by Norton Bridge railway station.
WThe Norwalk rail accident occurred on May 6, 1853, in Norwalk, Connecticut, and was the first major U.S. railroad bridge disaster; 48 were killed when a train travelling at 50 mph plunged into the Norwalk Harbor off of an open draw (swing) bridge.
WThe Paisley Gilmour Street rail accident occurred on 16 April 1979 at 19:50. The 19:40 Inverclyde Line service from Glasgow Central to Wemyss Bay, operated by two Class 303 trains, crossed from the Down Fast Line to the Down Gourock Line under clear signals at Wallneuk Junction immediately to the east of Paisley Gilmour Street railway station. It collided head-on with the 18:58 Ayrshire Coast Line special service from Ayr to Glasgow Central, formed of two Class 126 diesel multiple units, which had left Platform 2 against a red signal P31.
WThe Pécrot rail crash was a rail accident in the village of Pécrot, Belgium, that occurred on 27 March 2001 when two passenger trains collided head-on. The crash left 8 dead and 12 injured and was Belgium's worst rail disaster in a quarter of a century.
WThere have been four railway accidents at Potters Bar (England). Those in 1898 and 1946 were signals passed at danger. The accident in 2002 led to substantial public debate and a national change in policy relating to maintenance of infrastructure.
WThe Rafz train crash occurred at approximately 6.43 am on 20 February 2015. An S-Bahn and an Interregio express train collided at Rafz railway station in Rafz, Canton of Zürich, Switzerland.
WThe 1995 Russell Hill subway accident was a deadly train crash that occurred in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Line 1 Yonge–University of the Toronto subway on August 11, 1995. Three people were killed and 30 were taken to hospital with injuries when one train rear-ended another train. The subway line was shut down for five days following the incident. Investigations found that human error and a design flaw in the mechanical safety devices caused this accident. It remains the deadliest accident in a rapid transit system in Canadian history.
WThe Rüsselsheim train disaster occurred on February 2, 1990, on the Main Railway near the Rüsselsheim station in West Germany. With 17 persons killed and 145 injured the train collision is amongst the most serious in rapid transit.
WThe Shigaraki train disaster was a railway accident that occurred in Shigaraki, Shiga Prefecture, Japan on May 14, 1991. A Shigaraki Kōgen Railway (SKR) train and a West Japan Railway Company train collided head-on, killing 42 people and injuring 614 others. Until the Amagasaki rail crash in 2005, this was the deadliest railway disaster in Japan since the Yokohama rail crash of 1963, which killed 161 people.
WThe Southall rail crash occurred on 19 September 1997, on the Great Western Main Line at Southall, west London. An InterCity 125 high speed passenger train (HST) failed to slow down in response to warning signals and collided with a freight train crossing its path, causing seven deaths and 139 injuries.
WThe Spa Road Junction rail crash was an accident on the British railway system which occurred during the peak evening rush hour of 8 January 1999 at Spa Road Junction in Bermondsey, in South East London.
WThe St-Hilaire train disaster occurred on June 29, 1864, near the present-day town of Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec. The train, which was carrying many German and Polish immigrants, fell through an open swing bridge into the Richelieu River after the crew failed to obey a stop signal. Though uncertain, the widely accepted death toll is 99 people. The disaster remains the worst railway accident in Canadian history.
WThe Suonenjoki rail collision occurred on 12 August 1998, when a VR InterCity train arriving from the north and a VR freight train arriving from the south collided south of the Suonenjoki railway station in Finland. 26 people were injured, one of them seriously. The rear end of the locomotive of the freight train was pushed high up in the air on top of its first car.
WThe Violet Town rail accident, also known as the Southern Aurora disaster, was a railway accident that occurred on 7 February 1969 following the incapacitation of the driver of one of the trains, near the McDiarmids Road crossing, approximately 1 km south of Violet Town, Victoria, Australia. The crash resulted in nine deaths and 117 injuries.
WThe Wembley Central rail crash was a fatal railway accident that occurred on 11 October 1984 just outside Wembley Central railway station, Greater London.
WThe Wootton Bassett SPAD incident refers to a railway incident in the United Kingdom on 7 March 2015, where a steam-hauled charter train passed a signal at danger (SPAD) and subsequently came to a stand across a high-speed mainline junction. Another train, that had right of way, had passed through the junction 44 seconds earlier and no collision occurred nor was any damage done. The incident occurred near Wootton Bassett Junction, Wiltshire.