Cumbria rail accident victims named

Cumbria rail accident victims named

Cumbria rail accident victims named

Police this morning named the four rail engineers killed by a runaway maintenance unit in Cumbria over the weekend.

Darren Burgess, 30, Colin Buckley, 49, Gary Tindall, 46, and Chris Waters, 53, died after being hit by an unmanned wagon in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The wagon, carrying track equipment, had broken loose and rolled downhill from a loading yard three miles away.

Investigators from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) were on the scene yesterday, looking into the circumstances surrounding the accident.

Services on the West Coast Mainline were heavily disrupted as a result.

It would have been too dark to see the wagon approaching at the time of the accident, which occurred at 06:10 GMT yesterday. The men were also wearing ear protectors so they would not have been able to hear it.

The investigation will examine how the unit broke loose and why the alarm did not reach the work party in time.

Union bosses are calling for a public inquiry.