Wednesday 14 October 2020
Volunteers from the rail industry have repaired a memorial garden honouring the victims of a level crossing accident on the West Coast main line more than 50 years ago. The site in Hixon, Staffordshire, commemorates a tragic collision between a train and a low-loader lorry on a level crossing in the village in 1968.
In recent years the garden has become overgrown and damaged. Building on the excellent work already started by the local community, staff from Network Rail and CrossCountry stepped in to help make the garden a fitting memorial to those who lost their lives in the rail disaster.
John Robson, CrossCountry Regional Director, who led the work, said: “The railway in the UK is the safest in Europe. Tragedies such as this one are rare. But our industry must remember events like these in order to understand the lessons learned, and why we do things the way we do. It is a real privilege to work alongside Adam and other Network Rail colleagues to support the villagers of Hixon so that we never forget those who lost their lives.”
Adam Checkley, Senior Programme Manager for Network Rail, said: “When we heard about the state of the memorial garden, it was only right that we lent our support to make it a peaceful and pleasant place for local people to use and for those to remember loved ones who lost their lives. Thankfully, level crossing safety has come a very long way since 1968 with stringent measures in place to prevent such tragedies between vehicles and trains happening today.”
Network Rail has closed more than 1,250 level crossings and major improvements have been made to the management of level crossings over the last five decades.
Since the memorial garden work, train operator CrossCountry and Network Rail are working closely with the community on a series of other memorial plans to reflect the importance of the accident all those years ago.
Notes to Editors:
CrossCountry’s network is the most geographically-extensive passenger rail franchise in Britain. Stretching from Aberdeen to Penzance and from Stansted to Cardiff, it calls at over 100 stations. Based in Birmingham, CrossCountry connects seven of the Britain’s 10 largest cities and delivers 298 services every weekday, equating to some 40 million passenger journeys a year.
For further information on CrossCountry services visit crosscountrytrains.co.uk or follow them online via Twitter at @crosscountryuk or Facebook.com/crosscountrytrains
CrossCountry is part of the Arriva group, one of the leading providers of passenger transport in Europe. Arriva employs over 53,000 people and delivers over 2 billion passenger journeys across 14 European countries each year
About Network Rail:
We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.
Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.
Follow us on Twitter: @networkrail
Visit our online newsroom: www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk
CrossCountry Press Office: [email protected]
About CrossCountry
CrossCountry is a long-distance passenger train operator, with a network stretching from Aberdeen to Penzance and from Stansted to Cardiff and calling at over 100 stations. Based in Birmingham, CrossCountry connects seven of Britain’s 10 largest cities and delivers 240 services every weekday, equating to over 42 million passenger journeys each year.
For further information on CrossCountry services, visit crosscountrytrains.co.uk or visit one of our social media platforms via X @crosscountryuk or Facebook at facebook.com/crosscountrytrains
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