Two passenger trains collide near Bedford

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I still can’t make out why the driver of the moving train didn’t apply the brakes. He must have seen the train in front a mile off.

He did.

If he hadn’t, there’d have been nothing left of the front coach of the rear train, or the back of the front train, and there’d have been many more people dead. The damage suggests a modest speed of collision, relative to the line speed at that point (looking at it, likely 100mph or more).

The most informed speculation I’ve seen on rail forums so far suggests an Advanced Train Protection system failure, which would have required the front train driver to stop immediately to report. But if there was an ATP failure the driver of the rear train may not have been fully aware of a blockage on the line ahead. The failure of an audible signal in his cab might have caused him to pass a single yellow signal but assume it was green. That would have encouraged him to accelerate to line speed rather than slow in anticipation of a red signal ahead.