Cover Feature: Lara Jensen
I answered the knock at the door the night my brother and his two friends were killed. It was just before midnight when two local policemen arrived at our Murchison station homestead. Shearing was due to start the following day.
Around our kitchen table we learnt that three beautiful people in the prime of their lives were taken from us and that our families would never be the same again. It was Saturday July 8th, 2000.
A loaded grain train struck the Toyota my brother Christian was driving just on dark at the Yarramony Road level crossing near the small town of Jennacubbine in the WA Wheatbelt. Christian and his friends Jess Broad and Hilary Smith were all killed instantly. The accident happened at an unlit passive level crossing just a few kilometres away from the Jennacubbine Tavern, where a group of about 50 of their friends had gathered to celebrate a friend’s 21st. Christian, Jess and Hilary never made that party. The police drove away, and we were left grappling with the shock of this horrific tragedy.
“Alarmingly despite the enactment of the Rail Safety National Law since 2012, no legislation whatsoever has been introduced to improve train lighting around Australia.”
Neighbours brought casseroles and flowers and grieved with us. Then they rolled up their sleeves and helped us get on with the job of getting our sheep in holding yards shorn and trucked out so we could arrange my brother’s funeral. The homestead landline rang constantly with heartfelt condolences and offers of help. I saw first-hand that nobody looks after their own quite like the big family of the bush. The details of the accident emerged following the coronial inquest in 2001. Our families discovered that the system we thought was in place to protect rural road users was fundamentally broken and that another family had also paid the ultimate price.
To our horror we learnt a young man had been killed at the same passive level crossing just three years earlier. At the time of this first accident in 1997, a Road Safety Audit concluded the signage in place at the crossing did not meet the requirements of Australian Standards. Despite the loss of one precious life already, the railway crossing (in Main Roads WA jurisdiction), was still not deemed worthy of either a stop sign or flashing lights. It took the deaths of our three family members and fourteen years before flashing lights were finally installed at that notorious crossing.
Poor train lighting, limited signage, appalling visibility on approach to the unlit crossing, overgrown roadside vegetation and the absence of warning lights or rumble strips were all factors that contributed to the accident that killed our family members. The coronial inquest determined there was no drugs, alcohol or speed involved in the accident.
This horrific triple-fatality also resulted in recommendations by WA State Coroner Alastair Hope in 2001 for all locomotives to be fitted with external lighting in addition to ditch lighting to effectively warn motorists of their approach as inadequate train lighting was considered a factor in the crash and resulting death of my brother and his friends.
The rail industry and the national rail safety regulator, the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR) since its formation, have completely ignored these safety recommendations in addition to train lighting and passive level crossing safety recommendations made by two other State Coroners (NSW and Victoria) as well as findings from numerous committees on train illumination and passive level crossing safety after several high-profile rail crashes spanning many decades.
The ONRSR was set up in 2013 to supposedly ensure better rail safety protection for the entire Australian community and to oversee compliance with a new Rail Safety National Law (RSNL) now in place in all States of Australia. I am familiar with the history of its establishment (RSNL) because of the horrific accident that claimed the lives of my brother and his two friends in 2000 was one of the catalysts that led to its formation.
Alarmingly despite the enactment of the Rail Safety National Law since 2012, no legislation whatsoever has been introduced to improve train lighting around Australia. It is nothing short of a disgrace that in WA, the only change to train illumination in more than five decades is the addition of ditch lights to locomotives. But as Coroner Hope stated in his annual report in 2001 ‘these crossing lights do very little to illuminate the train itself or provide a light source directed to traffic approaching a railway crossing from any distance.” And so nearly 23 years later, train lighting in Australia is still quite literally stuck in the dark ages.
As a result of concerted lobbying efforts for years by a group of 12 Australian families of rail crash victims I represent, former Transport Minister Barnaby Joyce directed the ONRSR to commission a ‘Freight Train Visibility Review’ in October 2021, that was carried out by the Australasian Centre for Rail Innovation (ACRI). This has since led to further train lighting trials dubbed the most thorough investigation into train conspicuity ever undertaken in Australia by ONRSR. In coming weeks, we expect the culmination of these trial results in the Monash Institute of Rail Technology (MIRT) draft report to be released to the public and we sincerely hope it provides a tipping point for the monumental changes to train illumination the rail industry should have been forced to adopt decades ago in line with all other hazardous industries including road transport, mining, aviation and maritime industries that have had the strictest mandated safety lighting measures in place for decades.
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👉 This story excerpt is from Issue #15 of Kickin Up Dust magazine: March 2023.