Hixon Rail Crash - Background

Background

In the 1950s, British Railways found that the cost of manning some 2,400 level crossings had risen past £1 million per annum, with some locations seeing a tenfold increase. In the postwar labour market it was often difficult to recruit crossing keepers, the job itself being a responsible but rather dull occupation. In addition, manually operated crossings often caused long delays to road traffic because of the need to close the gates and clear the distant signal before the approaching train reached it.

In October 1956, senior members of the Railway Inspectorate embarked on a fact-finding trip to Holland, Belgium and France, to investigate the practice of automating level crossings. Their subsequent report recommended the introduction of automatically operated crossings with half-barriers, known as AHBs. This was projected to give considerable cost savings through the withdrawal of crossing keepers and would also speed up the flow of road traffic; the crossing being closed for less than a minute as opposed to 3 or 4 minutes at manned crossings.

"We consider that some of the Continental methods of operating level crossings will prove suitable for adoption in Great Britain without prejudice to safety... also, automatic and remote operation might be adopted at selected crossings after satisfactory trials."

Safety requirements were drawn up in 1957, but it was not until 1961 that the first automatic crossing in Britain was installed at Spath, near Uttoxeter. The crossing was designed to give a minimum of 24 seconds warning for the fastest train on that line.

By January 1968 there were 207 automatic crossings in Britain including the one at Hixon, which had been converted to automatic half-barrier operation in July 1967. Incidentally, Hixon was only eight miles from the pioneering installation at Spath.