Rail investigators warn of ‘obvious risk of further tragedy’ at user-worked crossings
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch has found that the lights at Bax crossing near Teynham in Kent “almost certainly” led Brandon Hatcher, a 23-year-old Amazon delivery driver, to believe it was safe to cross when a Southeastern train from Ramsgate struck his van in July 2025. “Private user worked crossings are a 19th-century concept operating in a 21st century world,” said the chief inspector, Andrew Hall, urging the government and industry to act “before there is further tragedy”.
Mr Hatcher, from Ashford, was working for a contractor, GG Logistix, when he opened the entry gate and drove onto the line; the exit gate was still closed. The reports give different speeds — 71mph in the official account carried by the Independent, 90mph in the Guardian — and differ on whether three passengers were slightly hurt or nobody else was injured; both quote the RAIB verbatim. A second driver, Simon Gettings, 55, died at a similar crossing in Lancashire in August when a Northern train hit his vehicle. User-worked crossings, where the person crossing opens and shuts the gates and must judge the line for themselves, number in the thousands on Britain’s network and are concentrated on rural farm tracks that delivery vans now use daily; the investigators’ point is that the design assumed a farmer who knew the line, not a courier following a satnav. Network Rail and the Department for Transport are asked to find “effective ways to mitigate this obvious risk”. Watch whether the DfT funds closures or telephone-and-light upgrades in the rail settlement, or leaves the question to Network Rail’s next control period.