Highways Agency

Introduction

1.1 The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL Limited) has been appointed by the Highways Agency to undertake detailed independent investigations into the pertinent highways aspects of an incident that occurred during the morning of 28 February 2001 at Little Heck Railway Bridge, between Junctions 34 and 35 of the M62 Motorway.

1.2 A TRL Preliminary Opinion Report into the incident was issued on 6 March 2001 and this Highways Report is intended as a full and detailed investigation report.

Brief Summary of Incident

1.3 The incident involved a vehicle leaving the westbound carriageway of the M62 Motorway prior to reaching the Little Heck Railway Bridge. The vehicle traversed the nearside verge at a relatively shallow angle, descended the slope of the embankment, traversed further along the base of the embankment, damaged two boundary fences between the highway and adjacent land, descended into the railway cutting and eventually came to rest immediately adjacent to, or partially across, the up-line, i.e. the southbound track, of the main East Coast railway.

1.4 Subsequently, this vehicle was struck by a high speed passenger train, travelling between Newcastle and London, which was consequently de-railed and eventually struck by a goods train travelling in the opposite direction, near the village of Great Heck. As a result of the overall incident, ten people tragically lost their lives.

Other Investigations

1.5 The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is conducting its own investigation into the railway aspects of the collision. The rail industry is also conducting detailed investigations, as are Humberside Police, North Yorkshire Police and British Transport Police. These investigations are all ongoing at the time of writing.

Highway Responsibilities

1.6 The Highways Agency (HA) is the executive agency of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the English Trunk Road and Motorway network.

1.7 The HA has a number of regional offices throughout the country, each of which co-ordinate the management and maintenance of the motorway and trunk road network in their region. The HA regional office responsible for co-ordinating the management and maintenance of the relevant section of the M62 Motorway is in Leeds.

1.8 The HA contract out the management of motorway and trunk road maintenance operations to third parties, referred to as Maintaining Agents (MAs). The MA for the material section of the M62 Motorway is WSP Civils Ltd (WSP).

1.9 The maintenance operations themselves are contracted out by HA to a Term Maintenance Contractor (TMC). The TMC for the relevant section of the M62 Motorway is Carillion Highway Maintenance Limited (Carillion).

1.10 Therefore, HA Leeds Office co-ordinates the management and maintenance of the material section of motorway, and WSP manages the maintenance operations, which are undertaken by Carillion.

1.11 The HA is investigating highway related aspects of the incident on behalf of the DETR and TRL's independent investigation has been undertaken to assist in this process.

Scope of TRL Investigation

1.12 This Highways Report is intended to provide independent comment and opinion on the adequacy and condition of all relevant aspects of the highway at the material location, in comparison with those suggested by national best practice and required by national standards.

1.13 Due to the fact that the Police investigations are still ongoing, little is currently known as to the primary causes of this incident. Therefore, the scope of this report is required to be relatively wide reaching.

1.14 The main issues addressed in this report are as follows:

• composition and condition of the road surfacing;
• routine highway maintenance operations;
• highway winter maintenance operations;
• the provision of vehicle restraint systems to the nearside of the westbound carriageway.

Methodology of Investigation

1.15 A six strong TRL investigation team arrived on site at approximately 1430hrs on Wednesday 28 February 2001. The team included highly experienced specialists in the fields of highway design and maintenance. In particular, this included safety fence and highway winter maintenance expertise. Other members of the team specialise in the acquisition of incident data using state-of-the-art 3-Dimensional laser scanning technology and this equipment was used to obtain detailed information concerning the accident scene.

1.16 Whilst on site, the investigation team liaised with staff from HA Leeds, WSP and Carillion. At that time, schedules of relevant documents were requested to be secured and copies of these documents have been provided to the investigators.

1.17 The site was subject to detailed examination, measurements were taken and specialist surveys of skidding resistance and other road surface characteristics were commissioned and then undertaken during the period up to 5 March 2001.

1.18 Since this date, the data obtained from site and all of the relevant documentation has been analysed and considered in detail in order for conclusions to be drawn and opinions expressed within this report.