45: Granville

In 1977, a commuter train from the Blue Mountains, destined for Sydney central station would derail just before Granville Station, causing a bridge to collapse and crush many aboard. It remains Australia’s worst ever rail disaster that was predicted by 11 engineering department heads just a year earlier. We look at how management decisions led to a completely avoidable disaster.
Podcast Audio: engineered.net...

[@PilotMcbride]

Thanks for this. I was working in the railway substation behind the signal box (to the west). Terrible day! This video brought the tears and the feelings back. It was a mess. Our concern was looking after injured survivors from the back carriages, they were a mess. The incredible noise, the dust, the cries from the injured are still with me to this day, I will die with them. Many of the male passenger refused treatment to help us with the injured. Very brave, some suffering shock but refused to leave those they were helping. They were and are heroes that day. Thank you.

[@Gribbo9999]

My cousin was on this train. He was not badly injured but others in his carriage were fatally injured right next to him. Being in shock, and in the post accident chaos, my cousin, understandably wanted to get as far away as possible from the horror he had witnessed. He was found several hours later and quite a distance away wandering in a disorientated state but still carrying his brief case. He made a full recovery I'm glad to say.

[@greatorex4130]

My father was there with the Penrith VRA assisting with rescue and recovery of the survivors and passed away. It was an incident that he carried heavy on his heart. There were so many great people there that day. He also was awarded the Granville Medal for his efforts that day . Sadly he passed in 2020, when he was good health, he attended the Granville memorial every year. RIP dad ❤

[@Woodland26]

I worked in Westmead hospital in 1989. I wondered why the disaster instruction guide was so thick, highlighting exactly what to do dealing a disaster, how all the medical and nursing staff would be allocated. At that time not linking the Granville event immediately. In 1977 Westmead would have just opened and it would have been a big test on its capacity and capability.

[@kenharris5390]

I'd like to point out that your forensic breakdown of the disaster is to be commended. The detailed research involved is extensive for which I, again, commend your efforts. Thank you for a moving presentation.

[@afs5609]

From the position of being employed in the railway at that time, the set of points were the primary cause of the derailment & nothing else, the points had been in question for sometime so I was advised by those who were responsible for track inspection several years later, the set of points had a speed restriction placed on them twice, but had been lifted due to complaints from operations that it was causing delays on the operational timetable, that area had many train movements in the morning & afternoon peak, In regard to the locomotive history thats what some may call a red herring, the condition of the leading wheel was within the operational guide lines, the run away of the train due to brake problems was not due to a locomotive defect, it was due to the the driver of the train isolating the brake pipe whilst it was in the brake siding at Katoomba while the grade controls were being set, the driver without authorisation swapped the slide valve feed valve from the leading end cab from the opposite end cab as he wasn't happen with its function, then departed without cutting in the brake pipe & only realised his mistake when he made his first brake pipe reduction, this information was supplied years after the incident while I was being trained in elements of the westinghouse brake system as a apprentice fitter.

[@annpeerkat2020]

It's interesting that a comment from @rayconnor994 on this video 1 year ago puts the error down to the loco "undercarriage" with sources of some weight. It's hard to believe that simply being employed by the railway at that time would enable you to categorically nail down the fault to a particular cause. Were all employees given access to the relevant unredacted data and reports? Perhaps you were employed in a role which guaranteed you would receive all available information, and a guarantee that all reports would be completely truthful without omissions. Personally I find it hard to believe that even the operational head of the railway could be assured of those things.

[@peterm1826]

My father. Drove over that bridge minutes before the accident. My condolences to the victims and their family members.

[@Snaerffer]

Very well done. I was about 12 when this happened and it was the biggest “disaster” story in Sydney for many, many years afterward. I only had cause to travel through Granville by rail on a couple of occasions and I have to say looking up at that new bridge gave me the creeps.

[@thedie-castaviator4081]

Fantastic, indepth video. A very sad event indeed. Hopefully the powers that be learnt something from this tragedy.

[@BazNapper]

According to something I read years ago, regarding Locomotive 4620. There were, at one time, several "new old stock" i.e. unused wheelsets supplied with the 46 Class locos available. Except NSWGR, in their ultimate wisdom, sold the wheelsets for scrap. Also, in the case of the brake failure and subsequent runaway with the same locomotive a few years prior. This was caused by the wagons not being properly piped up to the locomotive, thus the brakes on the wagons were essentially isolated. This meant that the only brakes available were those on the loco, little to no chance of stopping a heavy train in such circumstances. This was a staff error, and had a brake continuity test been carried out before departure it wouldn't have left the yard before being corrected.

[@rachels209]

To this day, every time I pass under this bridge, I remember that fateful day. Picture a 6y/o kid on a hot sunny morning playing with my best friend across the road ( edit - whose dad happened to be a model train buff, so his son and me by default sort of were). Then his mum goes into a state of panic with the news of the accident, knowing that her husband / my friends dad is on that train. By the grace of God, he was on the 2nd carriage. The 1st carriage was ripped apart, the 3rd and 4th crushed by the bridge. To the best of my knowledge, there is still a scar on the brickwork where the 2nd carriage scraped along, relatively unscathed. Bob, Pam & Brian, I will never forget.

[@jamesfrench7299]

That miniseries was very compelling viewing. I watched it twice within a short time. Peter O'brien's best performance.

[@davidmason7765]

Thanks for this. My dad's reserved seat in car 3 was flattened. Fortunately for him he woke early that day and took the train before. Some other poor person was in the seat. There was lots of crap at the time that steel carriages instead of the repurposed long distance wooden cars (no they were not the ones usually known as the red rattlers) would have done better. In general steel carriages do offer better passenger safety but with 200 tonne bridge spans falling it would have made little or no difference.

[@johnbarthram2761]

God bless the people who died and also all the rescue services, i understand there was a lot of bravery on that day, love from a pommy to Australia ❤

[@jacobaweaver8023]

Thankyou for a detailed explanation, l was little when it happened, but have never forgotten

[@danieleade9018]

Successive Liberal governments not investing in the rail network was a major factor, in my opinion. Subscribed by the way.

[@luvghd]

Agreed my grandfather was transport minister at the time and had just came into power, he was blamed but labour had just come into power and were left with the mess of the previous government.

[@ktipuss]

@@luvghd Right, I do recall a letter in the Sydney Morning Herald the next day blaming the Wran Labor government for the accident. The Wran government had been in power then for just 7 months, following the defeated LNP govt on whose "watch" the track maintenance backlog had got longer and longer. Unfortunately Philip Shirley had demanded of the previous LNP Transport Minister, Milton Morris, a free hand to do whatever he wanted without interference. Shirley seemed more interested in banning steam (both on rail and on water: South Steyne) and promoting a "modern dynamic image" than in doing anything of real value. In 1974 he hiked up rail fares by 40% with the effect of driving more people off trains and onto the roads.

[@usmale4915]

Great video...so well explained. Thank you for caring and sharing! EDIT: I have no idea why you do not have more subscribers. Your channel is fantastic! And yes, I am a subscriber!

[@engineerednetwork]

Thank you! The reason I don't have as many subscribers on KZbin (my theory) is because the channel is relatively new compared to the podcast release of Causality that's been running since 2015. It's a gradual thing and I'm just grateful that people are learning something from the content and enjoying it as well. Take care :)

[@ianbecker253]

I was close to the front of carriage 3 of that train. Obviously I survived, but those around me didn’t make it out. A lady in the other side of the aisle also made it out alive. I think we were about the only ones or at least 2 of the very few. Your comments anout injured passengers not getting compensation was incorrect. The NSW Govt paid ALL medical expenses as well as compensation based on the extent of injuries, work limitations and age. I received several thousand dollars as well as some trauma counseling. It wasn’t called PTSD back then. The coverup and corruption surrounding the the report was staggering, but at least the govt accepted liability and responsibility.

[@engineerednetwork]

Thank you for providing a correction to the news reporting on this incident. Both www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-04/granville-train-disaster-victims-finally-get-apology/8494010 and www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-18/granville-train-disasters-forgotten-survivors-speak-out/8127282 referenced cases where there was no compensation paid to victims, and in research no evidence of this was found. You are, to date, the first person to come forward regarding this episode that was injured in this incident and received compensation. I'm glad you survived as I am also glad that whilst belated, the government accepted responsibility in the end. Take care and thank you for the correction.

[@annpeerkat2020]

Hopefully all involved have the same apparent satisfaction regarding compensation as you. (I say apparent, not to be funny, but because you said "compensation based on the extent of injuries etc...) which doesn't indicate your belief of the appropriateness of the amount) If you've had full communication with all the injured passengers and understand all their individual circumstances, you're in a great position to give assurance on the topic. Why do I make this comment? Because on numerous occasions I've seen where the experiences of an individual don't reflect the experiences of all other individuals in the same circumstance. A crass example is ebay feedback, where glowing feedback and scathing feedback abound for the same entity.

[@petesmith9472]

As a schoolboy going from Windsor to Carlingford every day we used to play at hitting that trestle with our hats.

[@victorsauvage1890]

Good report.

[@billmago7991]

i remember it well, RIP to all the victims.Some were alive trapped , but when released passed away. So sad

[@rayconnor994]

What actually caused the train to derail was covered up. The Granville Historical Society was donated the NSW rail internal inquiry report and a letter from the coroner which proves the real cause. This report and the real cause of the derailment was hidden for 20 years. It showed that a near identical derailment occurred at Glenbrook eleven months earlier, February 1976. The investigation into that derailment determined that the 46 class loco had a problem with its undercarriage that required immediate rectification. Eleven months later, the 46 class loco that was involved in the Granville disaster had not had that rectification work done. That was the real cause and it is detailed in that internal inquiry that the Historical Society has. The Staunton Enquiry terms of reference specifically prohibited it from considering previous derailments. That is why it did not get to the bottom of it neither did the coronial inquest. It was not until 20 years later that the report was released. It was released to one of the co authors of an unpublished book about the disaster. "The Day of the Roses" miniseries was based on that book. The co author was also called by the Coroner while researching the book. The coroner detailed the extent of the cover up and who was involved but that he had never gotten to the bottom of the actual cause. The coroner wrote and sent the author a four page handwritten letter detailing what he said to the author during that phone call. The Granville Historical Society has that too (so have I). During that phone call the author informed the Coroner of the Glenbrook findings. So the coroner had known of the cover up and the author had discovered the actual cause. Between the two they got to the bottom of it. The coroner died three weeks after that letter was written.

[@engineerednetwork]

Thank you for your comment and additional information. Very interesting. The root cause of poor maintenance and inspections applies as much to the tracks and points as well as the rollingstock as I said in the episode. The question for me is whether the 46 Class Unit involved in the incident was overdue for its maintenance retrofit to address the issue from Glenbrook - I would expect so. If it was such a high risk then surely take it out of service, or was just being run because they needed the Rollingstock on the rails at that time? Irrespective, the lack of investment in maintenance and rectification works in all aspects of the railway leading up to the incident remains the root cause. Again thank you for taking the time to provide additional insight.

[@ktipuss]

My understanding is that the 46 Class locos had a propensity to "hunt", that is, a side to side motion of the power bogies as the loco proceeds. Apparently this is a known fault of other similar loco types around the world. Proper track maintenance and ensuring that gauge tolerances are not exceeded should compensate for this tendency.

[@xr6lad]

Good video. But I’m not in NSW and I knew about the crash (I’m 57). By the way few railways cover their cost - you can’t charge a proper fare otherwise you lose passengers.

[@stevesteve7089]

There was 2 positive as I recall. 1st there were many that past away after being removed. Crushed limb syndrome was found to be the cause, after this accident process were put in place for removal of persons trapped with crush injuries. Slow releasing the limb into the blood stream as many limbs have or in the process of dieing and then releasing toxins into the blood stream. 2nd was the invention for what of the word paramedics. This is a person above a ambulance driver and a Dr. These was a direct from this accident as they were not around before this. I remember as a kid waking up and watching this as it was still school holidays. The same day my parents had a guy come around for a quote for an extension for the house. So out of so much pain to those involved many more lifes have been saved by their lose.

[@elizabethroberts6215]

……a woman in our H O came to ours’, to talk about this, as she was a passenger. What she described was horrific. This is something she’ll have to live with for the rest of her life, poor woman. R I P all those who died………

[@wiretamer5710]

No one was held responsible by the enquiry. But the mob held the train driver responsible at the time, AND his career was destroyed as a result. A footnote in the report was not fair compensation for the loss of his career. Its funny how bureaucrats who starve maintenance programs to death within institutions, never face any consequences. Yet they put years of calculated effort into creating the conditions that trigger these disasters. If that is not pre-meditation. I don’t know what is. I don’t actually care what his intentions were. I see no structural economic reason why a public transport system needs to brake even, let alone make a profit. Every journey made on public transport, is a journey not made in a car on roads. Its not rocket science to calculate the savings. Cars and roads are far more costly and far more dangerous to the population. Who cares if the rail system runs at a 200% loss in terms of it’s internal budget!!!! Rail is far safer and therefore far more efficient than roads.

[@paulmorris2192]

Sometimes common sense is beyond one’s capability.

[@lancemckellar]

The driver continued to drive trains along the same route

[@pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug9042]

As for the comment on "it always comes back to money" Technically in some ways this is true, but people often say it in a sense of negativity, where the reality is - money is intrinsically linked with our society and it is the means in which things do and don't happen. Obviously everything can always be traced back to money in some regard. This does not mean money is the cause, nor does it insinuate greed. Money is just the means to do things - and it is explicitly linked to safety because, while some safety efforts can make things cheaper, a lot of safety efforts just cost more money and there is no limit to how much money you can spend on safety, because there are always technically ways to make things safer by just spending more money. This is why it is a bit disingenuous to blame companies for not spending enough on safety - because what constitutes enough? Technically the only way to completely eliminate incidents from a safety perspective is to just not operate as a company. The discussion needs to be around deciding the difference between enough and not enough - and it needs to be a serious discussion where we are willing to call things "enough" (because what normally happens is people say, if and incident occurs they obviously weren't doing enough). There is only so much money going around, are you willing to pay more for safety too? because the more money that is spent on your safety, the less money you get for yourself. The other reason why people blame money, is because they normally trace an incident back to money, and that is where they stop, it doesn't mean you can't go further. You could just as easily blame the state government for not allocating more money toward the railways, we don't know if they were ever asked to increase funding, maybe they were, but the state government said that everyone always wants money and they only have so much. You could also say they should have closed lines down and stopped operation - normally they can't choose to do this as they have a responsibility to run train services because that is their job. If they stop running train services, more people drive and driving is significantly less safe - more people probably would have died, but because it's only road deaths, does that not matter?

[@BGone-mb7wz]

This was a government run service provided for, paid for, and further subsidised by the people of NSW, and to lesser extents, the people of Australia - it's a service, not a business - it's objective should not be to create a profit. It creates profit for the state by facilitating the people's business, in turn, generating more income for the government.