Moment pram with child inside is hit by prepare as passengers watch on in horror

Grim pictures show the moment a baby in a pram was hit by a train in a shocking incident.

CCTV footage showed the collision occurring at Banbury station in Oxfordshire. In images, a pram can be seen helplessly rolling towards a train after the child’s parent let go. The train was travelling at 35mph when it hit the pram, a report from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch said. This caused the pram to flip over and the child to fall onto the platform.

The child, a two-month-old, sustained a head injury in the incident on June 8.

The report said: “At around 12:26pm, a passenger train travelling between Reading and York entered platform 2 of Banbury station, where it was due to stop.

“As the train arrived, a pram, carrying a 2-month-old infant, rolled towards the platform edge and came into contact with the train’s bodyside. This contact occurred while the train was moving at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h) and caused the pram to spin and tip over, resulting in the infant falling from the pram onto the platform surface. The infant sustained a minor head injury as a result.”

The report said the cause of the accident was “because the pram, which had been momentarily released by the infant’s parent, rolled along the platform slope, which sloped towards the platform edge at that location”.

The investigation revealed the child’s parent and another relative were standing with the pram and their luggage at around the midpoint of the platform’s width.

The pram remained parallel with the platform edge as the parent remained close to it, but this changed when the train grew nearer. The report states: “Around 15 seconds before the accident, the infant’s parent started to move the pram closer to the platform edge, intending to board the train.

“The pram was moved perpendicular to the platform edge and, around 10 seconds before the accident, its front wheels were touching the yellow line with the parent holding the pram’s handle with both hands. The infant’s parent then leant away from the pram to place one hand on their wheeled luggage and turned to face their relative, momentarily letting go of the pram.

“Around 6 seconds before the accident, with the parent still facing away from the pram, it began to move towards the platform edge. Around 3 seconds before the accident, the front of the train passed the position where the pram was located, and the pram continued to roll towards the platform edge. Around 1 second before the accident, the relative tried to intervene but the pram contacted the train’s bodyside.”

The report also said that at 12.15pm, an announcement to all passengers was made. “Passengers are reminded to keep hold of all personal belongings at all times and ensure that prams, buggies and wheelchairs have their brakes applied while stationary on station platforms as fast trains could cause wind turbulence when passing through,” the announcement said. This could be heard from the area the accident happened.

As for the slope on the platform, this had been assessed prior to the incident but those overseeing safety repairs said no opportunity arose to make changes.

The report said: “Network Rail reported that there was no ‘reasonable opportunity’ to remedy the slopes at Banbury station between the 2015 assessment and the time of the accident.

“The normal practice for maintaining platforms involves preventative maintenance and repairing damaged areas as required. This would mean that resurfacing more than 75 percent of a platform would rarely take place, and therefore it would potentially be a very long time before maintenance requirements alone prompted the remediation of platform slopes.

“While it is considered good practice to look for opportunities to make safety improvements when undertaking changes, the railway must also systematically assess measures to increase safety based on their own cost- effectiveness.

“Following the accident, Chiltern Railways installed signage in the customer lifts at Banbury station in addition to reviewing the signage on the platform surface. The signage installed in the lifts draws the attention of passengers to aerodynamic risk from passing trains to passengers on the platform but does not highlight the risk from platform crossfall slopes. Despite this, the instructions provided to passengers in this signage include appropriate actions to help prevent similar accidents (to the one that occurred at Banbury station) from reoccurring.”

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