RAIB has said the fatal collision between two Transport for Wales trains near Talerddig on 21 October 2024 could have been avoided if sanding systems had been used. The report into the crash, which killed Tudor Evans and seriously injured four other people, has now made the findings public.
Tudor Evans was 66 and was travelling home from a holiday in Italy when he died in the collision between two passenger trains near Talerddig. The trains were supposed to pass in the Talerddig Loop, but the train heading towards Aberystwyth did not stop even though the brakes were fully applied.
Talerddig Loop
The train slid through the loop and rejoined the single-track section of the Cambrian Line before hitting the train heading towards Shrewsbury head-on. At the point of impact, the Aberystwyth train was travelling at 24mph and the Shrewsbury train at 6mph.
The report says the driver of the Shrewsbury train had been warned by the signaller that the other train had failed to stop in the loop. Both trains were fitted with automatic and emergency sanding systems, and RAIB concluded the collision would not have happened if one or both of those systems had been activated.
Transport for Wales and Network Rail
Transport for Wales and Network Rail said incidents of this nature were extremely rare, but RAIB’s findings point to a specific failure in the braking response. The report says the automatic sander probably did not function because of electrical faults in its control circuit, while the driver did not activate the manually operated emergency sander.
RAIB made nine recommendations, including improving the safety of carriages for passengers. Transport for Wales and Network Rail said they would consider the recommendations, leaving the question of why the emergency sander was not used at the centre of the next review.
The railway remained closed until 28 October 2024, and the report now gives passengers on the Cambrian Line a clearer account of how the crash unfolded and what investigators say could have prevented it.
The Cambrian Line
The line’s passing loops are built to let trains travelling in opposite directions meet safely, so the report turns on a narrow sequence of failures inside one of those points. For affected passengers, the practical consequence is that the inquiry has shifted the focus from the collision itself to the braking systems that should have kept the trains apart.
