"S.Byers" wrote in message
om...
The extent of the damage in the Berkshire crash was caused by two
major factors apart from the speed of the train and the limited view
of the hero driver.

These we

1/ the rear power car, still under full power, caused much of the
crumpling and jack knifing, and

2/ the train would probably have remained upright if the points just
further on hadn't completely derailed it.

These two factors were not the fault of the suicidal car driver but
rather Railtrack's and First Great Western's.

Yet throughout the world we now have high speed passenger trains
pushed from the *rear* by high powered engines. There will be more
such crashes.

Neither RT (should be Network Rail btw) or FGW had any hand in the design of
the HST, as it came some 20 years before the existence of either! Secondly,
the rear power car was NOT under the full power. The train's 'black box
recorder' that the power notch was at zero and the brake handle was in
'emergency'. It was simply the inertia of the rear power car (which had
already derailed) that kept it moving. Much of what you have posted is quite
wrong.

--
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Rich Mackin (rich-at-richmackin-co-uk)
MSN: richmackin-at-hotmail-dot-com