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We've all seen train crash footage on the news. There seems to be a big one every few years. You see the mangled carriages without sense of scale. They lie strewn around the tracks, like a discarded Hornby model. You hear the solemn reporters talking of safety recommendations and asking what went wrong.
It's easy to put out of your mind if it's the other side of the country. Those trains are totally different anyway - they're nothing like the ones I catch to and from work every day.
But yesterday's crash was different.
"The train now arriving at platform four is the eighteen hundred hours First Great Western service to Plymouth. Calling at Newbury, Pewsey, Westbury, Castle Cary, Taunton, Tiverton Parkway, Exeter St. Davids, Newton Abbot, Totnes and Plymouth."
I know that pre-recorded speech pretty well. For the last four years, I've caught the 18:00 FGW train home from work almost every day. It only takes twenty minutes, and I get off at the first stop after Reading. I've never thought twice about it.
But Saturday's train never made it as far as Newbury. Not long after leaving Reading, it collided with a car which was stopped on a level crossing in Ufton Nervet. All eight carriages were derailed; some thought to have rolled over, some twisted in half. Seven people were killed in the accident, which I suppose isn't as many as you might expect for a train travelling at close to 100mph.
This morning, I took a coach to Didcot and then a train to Reading. The mood aboard the 125 (of the same design as Saturday's ill-fated serivce) was decidedly hushed. Few people spoke. Instead of being allowed to ring, mobile phones were quickly hushed. Crossing points outside Reading, the train lurched slightly. For a moment, people cast concerned glances before busying themselves with their newspapers, skipping the first few pages.
posted
As a frequent traveller, I know how you feel.
Spookily (though not in any conceivable good way), I posted this on the "Bad and Wrong" thread in Rants on Friday shortly before my weekly long distance journey.
Watching a documentary on the dangerous disintegration of the rail network last night - in preparation for my weekly hurtle up the West Coast Mainline on a Pendolino tonight.
Who needs Alton Towers when you can get a white knuckle ride with the inherent threat of death or disfigurement for twice the price from any mainline station.
ps. Before anyone points out that speed restrictions make a mockery of hurtling anywhere, let me just point out that the tilting motion of the trains more than compensates for the speed. Probably the only way you can be seasick in Staffordshire.
I wasn't laughing then and I'm not laughing now.
I didn't skip the first few pages of the newspaper when I got on my 7.15 train this morning. Which was sobering.
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