Remember this as if it was only yesterday... Regularly drive past the place where the Land Rover left the motorway & it's always there in my mind as I pass. So many lives ruined.

Lesson to be learnt - don't drive whilst tired!

It was just after 06:00 when Gary Hart fell asleep at the wheel of his Land Rover.

Shaken awake by the crash, he dialled 999. Mid-way through his call to police, a passenger train hit his Land Rover at 125mph (201km/h).

Selby rail crash: Disaster remembered 20 years on

By Tom Airey
BBC News

Published 16 hours ago


ODD ANDERSEN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
A Newcastle to London Kings Cross passenger train hit a freight train at a closing speed of 142 miles an hour in late February 2001

The Selby rail crash remains the worst UK rail disaster of the 21st Century. Ten men died and more than 80 people were seriously injured when two trains collided, the first thrown into the other's path by a Land Rover which had plummeted on to the East Coast Main Line after its driver fell asleep. Ahead of a memorial service 20 years on, survivors, bereaved relatives and others directly affected by events in the North Yorkshire village of Great Heck have shared their memories of the crash.

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Passenger Bob Brook was in his seat with a coffee and a newspaper, on his way to take the Eurostar to France. He describes experiencing a "sudden, very sharp braking".

"Now, being a railwayman, I thought he'd either missed a speed restriction sign or there was something else wrong. I don't remember anything else after that," he says.

The braking was too late to prevent the devastating impact that came next. The combined speed of both trains - 88mph (142km/h) for the InterCity 225 and 54mph (87km/h) for the freight train, according to Health and Safety Executive estimates - remains a record for an accident of its kind in the UK.

It completely derailed the passenger train, strewing wreckage and leaving one carriage 427ft (130m) away from the rail bridge in a field. The Freightliner locomotive, which was travelling from Immingham to Ferrybridge, and two of its wagons ended up in a garden, destroying a garage and a caravan.

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Selby rail crash

Details
Date: 28 February 2001; 06:13 GMT
Location: Great Heck, Selby, North Yorkshire, England
Coordinates: 53°41'14"N 1°05'53"W
Country: England
Line: East Coast Main Line
Operator: Great North Eastern Railway
Cause: Obstruction on line

The Selby rail crash was a high-speed train accident that occurred at Great Heck near Selby, North Yorkshire, England, on the morning of 28 February 2001. An InterCity 225 passenger train operated by Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) travelling from Newcastle to London collided with a Land Rover Defender which had crashed down a motorway embankment onto the railway line. It was consequently derailed into the path of an oncoming freight train at an estimated closing speed of 142 mph (229 km/h). Ten people died including the drivers of both trains, and 82 were seriously injured. It remains the worst rail disaster of the 21st century in the United Kingdom.

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Events

The crash occurred at approximately 06:13 (GMT), when a Land Rover Defender, driven by Gary Neil Hart and towing a loaded trailer (carrying a Renault Savanna estate car), left the carriageway of the westbound M62 motorway just before a bridge over the East Coast Main Line. The vehicle ran 30 yards (27 m) down an embankment and onto the southbound railway track. Hart tried to reverse it off the track but could not. He exited the vehicle and, while he was using a mobile telephone to contact emergency services, the Land Rover was hit by a southbound Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) InterCity 225 heading from Newcastle to London King's Cross.

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Legal proceedings

Hart escaped the incident unscathed and was later tried on ten counts of causing death by dangerous driving. He denied the charges, claiming that his car had suffered a mechanical fault or had collided with an object on the road. An investigation, including reconstruction of the Land Rover to demonstrate that it was not mechanically defective, concluded that Hart had been driving in a sleep-deprived condition, and had not applied the brakes as it went down the embankment. It later transpired that Hart had stayed up the previous night talking on the telephone to a woman he had met through an internet dating agency. He was found guilty on 13 December 2001, and was sentenced to five years in prison and a five-year driving ban. He was released from prison in July 2004 after serving half of his sentence.

Campaigners drew attention to what they claimed was the inadequate length of the crash barriers alongside the motorway. According to the Health and Safety Executive's final report, the Land Rover had left the road 30 yards before the barrier started and had easily broken through the simple wooden fence that lined the track. A 2003 Highways Agency review of crash barriers on bridges over railways concluded that only three bridges nationwide were in need of upgrading. The bridge at Great Heck was not one of them. By October 2003 Hart's insurers had paid out over £22 million. Gary Hart's insurers, through Hart's name, sued the Department for Transport for a contribution to the damages paid to GNER and the victims, alleging a degree of causation on the grounds that the safety barrier was inadequate (contributory negligence). The High Court judge ruled that the barrier length had been reasonable and there was no negligence.

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