On This Day in 2004, Tebay Rail Accident

Today, 15 February, marks the anniversary of the Tebay rail accident of 2004, when four railway workers were killed on the West Coast Main Line in Cumbria. In the early hours of that Sunday, a runaway wagon travelled down the line in darkness and struck a group carrying out overnight work near Tebay, leaving five more men injured and sending shockwaves through Britain’s rail maintenance community.

The chain of events began at Scout Green, close to Shap Summit, where a wagon loaded with lengths of steel rail was being handled at a maintenance location. Its hydraulic brakes had been disconnected because of a fault, and wooden chocks were placed in front of the wheels to stop it moving. Those chocks were not a permanent fix, and the underlying braking problem had not been properly remedied.

As work continued, a maintenance worker used an excavator’s “log grab” in an attempt to drag sections of scrap rail from the wagon. That action dislodged the wooden blocks, and the wagon began to roll downhill. On the 1 in 75 gradient from Shap Summit, it gathered momentum, turning a stationary piece of equipment into a lethal, uncontrolled vehicle.

With no audible warning and little time for anyone to react, the 16-tonne steel wagon rolled down the West Coast Main Line and reached speeds of up to 40 mph. About 3.25 miles down the track, it struck the workers, killing Gary Tindall, 46, from Tebay; Chris Waters, 53, of Morecambe; and Colin Buckley, 49, and Darren Burgess, 30, both from Carnforth. Five other men were injured, and the wagon continued to travel for almost four miles before coming to a stop.

A memorial plaque was later erected beside the line in September 2006, mounted on a large roughly hewn stone block adjacent to the scene of the incident and inscribed with the names of those who died. It stands as a permanent marker of a night when routine engineering work on a main line ended in sudden tragedy.

The aftermath also played out in the courts. Mark Connolly, the boss of rail maintenance company MAC Machinery Services, and crane operator Roy Kennett were tried at Newcastle Crown Court on charges of manslaughter by gross negligence, with Connolly also prosecuted for breaches of health and safety law. Both men were found guilty by majority verdicts; Connolly was initially sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment and Kennett to two, and while their appeal against conviction failed on 1 March 2007, Connolly’s prison term was reduced to seven years.