The Ticket Collector

Notwork Blunder - risked Lincoln rail catastrophe.

An apparently serious blunder by a Network Rail manager who worked a signal box during last Saturday’s Lincoln area signallers’ strike could have had catastrophic consequences.

The RMT union has today asked the Railways Inspectorate to investigate an incident at West Holmes box in which track workers and passengers were put at serious risk by an error that could have sent a passenger train on the Newark-Lincoln line through an engineering site at up to 70mph.

A document seen by the union indicates that the time an engineering ‘blockage’ was supposedly given up last Sunday morning (February 24) was entered on a safety-critical authorisation form the night before - more than eleven hours before the time indicated on the form.

The time the blockage is given up is meant to be recorded when it actually takes place, after checking with the person responsible for the safety of the engineering work on the ground, and only then is the line safe to be re-opened to traffic.

If the mistake had not been spotted by the experienced signaller who re-opened the box the following morning, and had the engineering work overrun, the line could have been re-opened to traffic with potentially fatal consequences.