Qualla: Hixon rail crash

Hixon rail crash: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kate Jewell, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the morning of Saturday 6 January 1968, an enormous low-loader was moving slowly across a level crossing on the West Coast Main Line at Hixon in Staffordshire. The transporter was 148 feet long, weighed 162 tons, and carried a 120-ton electrical transformer destined for a depot at the disused RAF Hixon airfield. The crossing was a new automatic half-barrier installation, only the second generation of its kind in Britain. The transporter was too long and too slow to clear the rails in the warning time the system allowed. An express train approached at speed. Eleven people died. The inquiry that followed changed level crossings across Britain.

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Image: Kate Jewell | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hixon rail crash: A Cheaper Crossing

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pete Hanley at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. British Railways in the 1950s was looking for a way to cut the cost of crossing keepers. The bill for manning the country's 2,400 level crossings had climbed past £1 million a year, and at some locations had risen tenfold. The job itself was responsible but dull and hard to recru...

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Image: Pete Hanley at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hixon rail crash: The Earlier Warning

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ben Brooksbank, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 8 November 1966, a transporter belonging to the haulage firm Robert Wynn and Sons Ltd had nearly come to grief on an automatic crossing at Leominster, in Herefordshire. The vehicle had become grounded on the rails. Disaster was avoided only because the driver violently revved ...

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Image: Ben Brooksbank | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hixon rail crash: The Morning of 6 January 1968

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geni, CC BY-SA 4.0. The transporter that left Stafford at around 9:30 that Saturday was hauling a 120-ton electrical transformer from the English Electric works to a storage depot at the old RAF Hixon airfield, three miles north of Colwich Junction. The vehicle was propelled by a tractor unit at eac...

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Image: Geni | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hixon rail crash: The Collision

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ben Brooksbank, CC BY-SA 2.0. An express on the West Coast Main Line met the transporter on the crossing. Eleven people were killed. Forty-five were injured. The damage to the train and rolling stock was significant, the inquiry put it at £2 million. The transformer was wrecked. Two of the Mark 1 Tourist Seco...

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Image: Ben Brooksbank | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hixon rail crash: Aftermath

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit TheFrog001, CC0. The public inquiry found the haulage company's directors chiefly at fault. It also exposed the institutional pattern that had allowed the disaster: the Railway Inspectorate, not BR, had pushed automatic half-barriers into service, and Colonel Reed of the HMRI, who took charge of ...

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Image: TheFrog001 | CC0