Thursday 12 December 2013 will mark 25 years since the Clapham Junction Rail Crash that left 35 people dead and hundreds injured.
The accident happened when the crowded 06:14 train from Poole to London Waterloo crashed into the back of the stationary 07:18 Basingstoke service, which had stopped at a red signal. A third train, travelling empty in the opposite direction, hit the wreckage only minutes later.

The resulting Hidden inquiry into the crash found the primary cause to be wiring errors made by a rail worker who’d had only one day off in 13 weeks, and that a culture of excessive hours was to blame. The inquiry made 93 recommendations for safety improvements, including a limit on working hours. However, Hidden recommended that the maximum staff working period should be 12 hours, a recommendation that has now been sidelined and replaced by a 14 hour door-to-door limit, including unpaid hours, a period which RMT believes piles on stress and fatigue.

Today, RMT is issuing a renewed call for “constant vigilance” on rail safety with a blunt warning that cuts to rail staffing, and the drive to casualisation and zero hours contracts amongst rail agencies supplying engineering staff, risks dragging the rail network backwards to a culture of fatigue and overwork.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:
“25 years after the Clapham Disaster we remember those who lost those lives and those who survived thanks to the work of the emergency services and staff from within our own industry.

“The tragedy is an eternal warning of what happens when staff are suffering fatigue and are operating within a culture of excessive hours and impossible demands.

“25 years on from Clapham , RMT is issuing a renewed call for an end to the casualisation and zero hours contracts culture which is being rolled out across the railways by stealth and where fatigue, and a lack of clear management control, is once again being flagged up as a major issue by our members.

“RMT expects our concerns to be taken seriously and for immediate action to be taken to bring Network Rail works back in house within an environment where safety is paramount and where staff are on decent pay and conditions and where working hours are properly managed and controlled.”