Back in the early 90's I lived in Slough, (it's not far from Windsor, about 25 miles west of central London) and fairly close to the station, I used the train to commute to work, which was partly in London, and partly at Heathrow airport. Around '92/93 Network SouthEast as it was at the time, took delivery of a large fleet of new DMU's, known as "Thames Turbo's", to replace their 1950's vintage diesel units and 1950's and 60's built hauled coaching stock with 1960's loco's, and providing a passenger ambience that jumped light years ahead (although us railfans missed having a loco up front! ) The accident at Slough was (I believe) the first serious one to afflict the Turbo fleet, and as far as I can remember took place sometime around 1992-1994, but unfortunately it was not the last, as they seem to have been involved in more than their share of incidents, right up to, and including the Ladbroke Grove disaster... Anyhow...that was all in the future at this time... This is Slough station, looking west (towards Reading) before the accident, with a nice shiny new 3 car turbo calling at platform 4 with a train for Reading. This service will have travelled fast or semi-fast from London Paddington as far as Slough, and an all-stations stopping service covers all the intermediate Slough-London stops. Those trains would use a set of crossovers behind me to access Platform 6, the terminating (or Bay in UK terminology) platform on the right. The driver would then change ends, and after a short wait, the train would return to London. Simple really. On the evening in question, unit 165102 was working one of these stopping services approached Slough, the driver apparently made his usual brake application, and the train failed to slow....the train slid on, and as the driver realised that there was no chance of avoiding a collision he ran back through the coaches warning people to hold on.... The unit was still moving at quite a rate as it reached the end of the platform, the coupler jammed under the old bufferstop at the end, and this lifted the front of the lead car enough to put it on the platform, the lead truck was ripped off and formed a ramp for the rest of the train to pass over....the wood and glass wall at the end of the platform disintegrated in a shower of debris and the mail trolleys parked beyond were thrown in all directions. The lead car reared up, smashing it's way through the platform canopy, as the lead truck on the second car was ripped off as well. The unit came to rest with the lead car, and the front half of the second car firmly on the platform, wedged under the canopy. The third car was not even derailed! Fortunately as it was in the late evening the train was lightly loaded and there were no serious injuries to anyone on board, and luckily there was nobody on the platform either! The above photo was taken from platform 4 the evening after, there are men up on the roof with cutting gear trying to remove damaged sections of canopy from the roof of the unit, and in the upper right hand corner, a crane has arrived to remove the cars, when they can clear enough space to lift the car through! Here they are cutting through a canopy girder to free up the top of the car, the glow is the shower of sparks coming down across the cab area. The unit has actually stood up fairly well! By the end of the week the platforms were re-opened, with scaffolding poles holding up certain bits of the canopy, and others fenced off. This pic makes an interesting comparison with the first one on this post. Looking the other way, the gaping hole in the roof is obvious, as is how far the unit got. On weekday mornings this platform is often packed with waiting commuters (at that time including me!), which puts a new, and rather more sobering slant on the hoarding on the right advertising the then new national lottery! One thing that might be of interest, the low flying train managed to just miss the stuffed dog that resides on Platform 5, and is visible at left. I think it was a somewhat narrow escape! For more background on the issues involved, see this trainboard topic on prototype track cleaning. One of the things that came out of this accident is that these units are now fitted with emergency sanders, hopefully preventing the same events from happenning again... I'll post a couple more shots tomorrow. Night folks.
All the loose debris was dumped in the car park behind the staion till it could be recovered... One of the trucks that was ripped off on impact sits in the car park, surrounded by debris including lots of wrecked mail carts and the remains of the buffers. The unit was out of service for several months, here the undamaged rear car is sat on a low-loader truck in the station car park.
Very exciting pictures. Thank you very much. I know of this station and have visited with my girlfriend who once lived in Slough. The travellers on the train cars were very lucky.
