The Hatfield disaster – which took place 25 years ago – is a telling history lesson, particularly during this period of structural change
It’s not difficult to think that the rail industry is caught in a ‘rinse and repeat’ cycle, like the children’s TV show The Magic Roundabout, particularly as it lurches through its current structural change with all the pace of Brian the Snail. However, there was a time when it lost the plot, on a scale that seems barely comprehensible. However, the damage had set in months, if not a few years earlier, due to a poor maintenance regime and baffling structure; it came to a head 25 years ago this week. The effects were far-reaching and ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the private sector infrastructure provider, Railtrack.
For those who weren’t on the scene back then or can’t remember, the 12:10 GNER train from London King’s Cross to Leeds derailed at Hatfield on October 17, 2000, killing four passengers and the cause of the disaster was poor track condition, or more specifically, a predicament that became known as ‘gauge corner cracking’. This was a tragedy, and the loss of life cannot be underplayed, although on a lower magnitude than the disasters at Southall (1997) and Ladbroke Grove (1999), which preceded it. However, the impact on the rail industry was far more profound and chaotic.
In an industry quick to lionise its legends, the railway has had its fair share of individuals who had an indelibly different legacy. One such individual is Jonson Cox, a name that only a few will likely remember. He spent 10 tumultuous months in the rail industry, serving as Railtrack’s operations director, despite having only one month of experience in the sector, having arrived from Yorkshire Water. Cox was renowned for his self-belief, but in the immediate aftermath of the Hatfield disaster he presided, with limited consultation with his more experienced team of managers, to impose a 20mph speed restriction nationwide at sites of concern that in some cases quadrupled journey times, haemorrhaged patronage not seen before bringing the industry to its knees and ultimately costing Railtrack £1bn in performance regime pay-outs to train operators, leading to it going bust – replaced by Network Rail.
Cox was known to be self-confident and not everyone’s cup of tea. He also blindsided his chief executive, Gerald Corbett, by apparently not consulting him on the decision to impose the speed restriction. However, there could, in hindsight, be a level of sympathy towards him. Following Southall and Ladbroke Grove, Railtrack was under extreme pressure from deputy prime minister Sir John Prescott to deliver a safe railway at any cost.
This led to unprecedented risk aversion on an unprecedented scale, such that speed restrictions on a scale imposed by Cox were seen as excessive both in terms of their being widespread and the speed itself. Railtrack was also astonishingly bereft of experience – despite the ‘safety at any cost’ edict, the post-privatisation era had seen it cavalierly allow engineering expertise to walk out the door, neglecting the fact that it was, in fact, one of the largest engineering businesses in the UK.
In the aftermath of Hatfield and Corbett’s departure a month later, Railtrack’s engineering capability at the board level consisted of a CEO with no rail experience and Cox, who was barely a month into the industry. Below the board, senior managers Andrew McNaughton and Richard Middleton, the only renowned engineering experts, were not seen as having been sufficiently listened to. The chair, Sir Phillip Beck, according to Christian Wolmar in his excellent book Broken Rails, was “approximately 10th choice for the job” and was “weak and ineffectual”. It should be noted that Wolmar’s microscopic analysis of the myriad of causes of the disaster, including incompetence in the planning and delivery of new rails intended to replace the perilous track in the months leading to the disaster, is absolutely first-rate and frankly gripping, even 24 years after it was first published. Similarly, its opening chapter, titled “The Man Who Stopped the Trains,” is in reference to Jonson Cox.
The Hatfield disaster is a telling history lesson, particularly during this period of structural change in the rail industry. To an extent, the ills of a fragmented structure, which contributed to the disaster and feeble response, are being corrected by the creation of a unified set-up under Great British Railways. Following Hatfield, the lack of a single function or board responsible for all aspects of Railway PLC – engineering, customer, operations, and commercial, for instance – meant there was no joined-up, balanced response. The Railtrack Board could only make a safety and engineering-related decision because, around the table, there was no one balancing the decision between speed restrictions and the likely impact on the customer offering and revenue impact in terms of patronage. The train operating companies could moan (and they did), but back then, there was such arrogance and antipathy towards them from Railtrack that their views were dismissed. Talented managers tended to gravitate towards the train companies (TOCs) at privatisation, where the rewards were greater and the roles were seen as more dynamic. Even from an engineering perspective, the more experienced individuals were battering down the doors to work for TOCs, made easier by Railtrack’s relegation of the importance of engineers and its contentment to see their resources cut to the bone or outsourced to contractors.
Hatfield was, to an extent, a disaster waiting to happen. Railway operational performance was on its knees, with compensation payments crippling Railtrack. The reality in the year or so before the tragedy was that it wasn’t a case of ‘safety at any cost’, and the desire by Railtrack, under massive pressure from the Rail Regulator, to keep the railway fully operational, avoiding speed restrictions, to reduce compensation payments, led to maintenance being deferred. Again, in a unified, single set-up, the folly of money changing hands between one part of the industry and another in fines, thereby causing perverse incentives and conflicting priorities, should be avoided.
I recall being horrified as a TOC customer service director sitting in board meetings where glee was derived when we presented back a month of disruptions, because the company would be making more money from compensation from the infrastructure provider than from the farebox. Good for our bonus, but not for the customer. However, Hatfield was also a result of wider systemic failings at Railtrack, ranging from its inability to manage maintenance contractors to keeping consistent and updated records of the track’s condition and knowing how to interpret these to prioritise decisions around re-railing.
Of course, creating a unified structure isn’t going to eliminate the chances of another Hatfield (and its aftermath) from happening. Looking back not only at Hatfield, but also at Ladbroke Grove, Southall and other past disasters, there’s no shortage of feedback from managers, employees, and contractors working for Railtrack, train companies, or British Rail, who have concerns but do not feel comfortable raising them. I’ve long felt a bit nervous about the industry having a single, dominant body or monolith in charge, because human nature tends to mean that everyone is terrified of challenging or even daring to criticise or fall out with them, as they will be, in effect, frozen out of the sector and their livelihoods destroyed.
Hatfield and its aftermath was a metaphor for all the ills of a rotten industry
Similarly, I worry that we’re in a position where the industry is losing so much experience that we’ll find ourselves in a similar situation to that which Railtrack faced at the turn of the century. I recall that I was working for the Strategic Rail Authority at the time of the accident, and spent many days in the aftermath on prolonged train journeys with some of the most senior leaders from British Rail who had left at the time of privatisation and were consultants. They grumbled so much on our trips about the state of the industry that I put it down to the rantings of angry, slightly maverick old-timers. Doing the maths now, I realise they were the same age as I am now and still had many years left in the sector. Yet here they were, brimming with experience and capable of digging the railway out of the mire, but were left to comment in despair from the sidelines.
How many outspoken 50-somethings will be approached by GBR to contribute to the future? With each passing year, fewer people will recall previous structural changes and what worked and what didn’t. Let’s hope the leaders tomorrow will learn from history and not overly confidently reinvent it from scratch.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to Jonson Cox? You might think that such an inglorious chapter in one’s career would cause irreversible damage, but time’s a great healer, and moving into another sector can, like disappearing abroad for a spell, mask what happened, even in the internet age. Cox has done well for himself – he’s currently chair of the Port of London Authority, alongside non-executive roles. He has been a senior advisor to Arriva’s owners, I Squared Capital, since 2013 and was chair of Ofwat for nearly a decade.
It’s easy to be critical of Cox and incredulous at his achievements since his spell at Railtrack (which, on his LinkedIn profile, he merely states his job title and the company name). However, looking back, it was, in my view, a complete folly appointing someone so young and with zero rail experience as Cox, to such as role in an industry that demands unique technical expertise and at a time when it was trying to bed itself down after seismic structural change that had set itself up to be combative, uncollaborative in set-up and behaviours, as well as fragmented and on the back of a series of high profile disasters. The situation could have been alleviated had he had a supportive, experienced, and credible board – but he didn’t, and neither did he have one below him.
It’s easy to snipe from the sidelines, but if I were plunged into the circumstances that Cox faced, aged 43 in a new industry, would I also have been similarly risk-averse on the back of a disaster, such as Hatfield? The industry demonised Cox 25 years ago, but he was just a victim of a political framework that had pushed the rail industry to the brink.
Hatfield and its aftermath were, like no other incident, a metaphor for all the ills of a rotten industry, both in terms of leadership, inexperience, structure, and behaviour. It’s a relief that in recent decades, the industry hasn’t had to contend with the loss of life that those of us growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, then in the early stages of our career lived through with many more disasters and mishaps (I was on the train involved in the Cannon Street rail crash in 1991 and though it was a ‘near miss’ for me as I alighted at London Bridge, the spectre of that day never leaves me). However, I wonder if the younger generation can relate to the causes, direct or indirect, and the impact of disasters in the same way their predecessors do. On the 25th anniversary, the enquiry into the events that caused the 10:00 from London to Leeds on October 17 2000, should be compulsory reading for anyone creating and implementing the new set-up for UK rail.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alex Warner has over 30 years’ experience in the transport sector, having held senior roles on a multi-modal basis across the sector. He is co-founder of transport technology business Lost Group and transport consultancy AJW Experience Group (which includes Great Scenic Journeys). He is also chair of West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
We must re-learn lessons of Hatfield
by Passenger Transport on Oct 20, 2025 • 11:38 am No CommentsThe Hatfield disaster – which took place 25 years ago – is a telling history lesson, particularly during this period of structural change
It’s not difficult to think that the rail industry is caught in a ‘rinse and repeat’ cycle, like the children’s TV show The Magic Roundabout, particularly as it lurches through its current structural change with all the pace of Brian the Snail. However, there was a time when it lost the plot, on a scale that seems barely comprehensible. However, the damage had set in months, if not a few years earlier, due to a poor maintenance regime and baffling structure; it came to a head 25 years ago this week. The effects were far-reaching and ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the private sector infrastructure provider, Railtrack.
For those who weren’t on the scene back then or can’t remember, the 12:10 GNER train from London King’s Cross to Leeds derailed at Hatfield on October 17, 2000, killing four passengers and the cause of the disaster was poor track condition, or more specifically, a predicament that became known as ‘gauge corner cracking’. This was a tragedy, and the loss of life cannot be underplayed, although on a lower magnitude than the disasters at Southall (1997) and Ladbroke Grove (1999), which preceded it. However, the impact on the rail industry was far more profound and chaotic.
In an industry quick to lionise its legends, the railway has had its fair share of individuals who had an indelibly different legacy. One such individual is Jonson Cox, a name that only a few will likely remember. He spent 10 tumultuous months in the rail industry, serving as Railtrack’s operations director, despite having only one month of experience in the sector, having arrived from Yorkshire Water. Cox was renowned for his self-belief, but in the immediate aftermath of the Hatfield disaster he presided, with limited consultation with his more experienced team of managers, to impose a 20mph speed restriction nationwide at sites of concern that in some cases quadrupled journey times, haemorrhaged patronage not seen before bringing the industry to its knees and ultimately costing Railtrack £1bn in performance regime pay-outs to train operators, leading to it going bust – replaced by Network Rail.
Cox was known to be self-confident and not everyone’s cup of tea. He also blindsided his chief executive, Gerald Corbett, by apparently not consulting him on the decision to impose the speed restriction. However, there could, in hindsight, be a level of sympathy towards him. Following Southall and Ladbroke Grove, Railtrack was under extreme pressure from deputy prime minister Sir John Prescott to deliver a safe railway at any cost.
This led to unprecedented risk aversion on an unprecedented scale, such that speed restrictions on a scale imposed by Cox were seen as excessive both in terms of their being widespread and the speed itself. Railtrack was also astonishingly bereft of experience – despite the ‘safety at any cost’ edict, the post-privatisation era had seen it cavalierly allow engineering expertise to walk out the door, neglecting the fact that it was, in fact, one of the largest engineering businesses in the UK.
In the aftermath of Hatfield and Corbett’s departure a month later, Railtrack’s engineering capability at the board level consisted of a CEO with no rail experience and Cox, who was barely a month into the industry. Below the board, senior managers Andrew McNaughton and Richard Middleton, the only renowned engineering experts, were not seen as having been sufficiently listened to. The chair, Sir Phillip Beck, according to Christian Wolmar in his excellent book Broken Rails, was “approximately 10th choice for the job” and was “weak and ineffectual”. It should be noted that Wolmar’s microscopic analysis of the myriad of causes of the disaster, including incompetence in the planning and delivery of new rails intended to replace the perilous track in the months leading to the disaster, is absolutely first-rate and frankly gripping, even 24 years after it was first published. Similarly, its opening chapter, titled “The Man Who Stopped the Trains,” is in reference to Jonson Cox.
The Hatfield disaster is a telling history lesson, particularly during this period of structural change in the rail industry. To an extent, the ills of a fragmented structure, which contributed to the disaster and feeble response, are being corrected by the creation of a unified set-up under Great British Railways. Following Hatfield, the lack of a single function or board responsible for all aspects of Railway PLC – engineering, customer, operations, and commercial, for instance – meant there was no joined-up, balanced response. The Railtrack Board could only make a safety and engineering-related decision because, around the table, there was no one balancing the decision between speed restrictions and the likely impact on the customer offering and revenue impact in terms of patronage. The train operating companies could moan (and they did), but back then, there was such arrogance and antipathy towards them from Railtrack that their views were dismissed. Talented managers tended to gravitate towards the train companies (TOCs) at privatisation, where the rewards were greater and the roles were seen as more dynamic. Even from an engineering perspective, the more experienced individuals were battering down the doors to work for TOCs, made easier by Railtrack’s relegation of the importance of engineers and its contentment to see their resources cut to the bone or outsourced to contractors.
Hatfield was, to an extent, a disaster waiting to happen. Railway operational performance was on its knees, with compensation payments crippling Railtrack. The reality in the year or so before the tragedy was that it wasn’t a case of ‘safety at any cost’, and the desire by Railtrack, under massive pressure from the Rail Regulator, to keep the railway fully operational, avoiding speed restrictions, to reduce compensation payments, led to maintenance being deferred. Again, in a unified, single set-up, the folly of money changing hands between one part of the industry and another in fines, thereby causing perverse incentives and conflicting priorities, should be avoided.
I recall being horrified as a TOC customer service director sitting in board meetings where glee was derived when we presented back a month of disruptions, because the company would be making more money from compensation from the infrastructure provider than from the farebox. Good for our bonus, but not for the customer. However, Hatfield was also a result of wider systemic failings at Railtrack, ranging from its inability to manage maintenance contractors to keeping consistent and updated records of the track’s condition and knowing how to interpret these to prioritise decisions around re-railing.
Of course, creating a unified structure isn’t going to eliminate the chances of another Hatfield (and its aftermath) from happening. Looking back not only at Hatfield, but also at Ladbroke Grove, Southall and other past disasters, there’s no shortage of feedback from managers, employees, and contractors working for Railtrack, train companies, or British Rail, who have concerns but do not feel comfortable raising them. I’ve long felt a bit nervous about the industry having a single, dominant body or monolith in charge, because human nature tends to mean that everyone is terrified of challenging or even daring to criticise or fall out with them, as they will be, in effect, frozen out of the sector and their livelihoods destroyed.
Similarly, I worry that we’re in a position where the industry is losing so much experience that we’ll find ourselves in a similar situation to that which Railtrack faced at the turn of the century. I recall that I was working for the Strategic Rail Authority at the time of the accident, and spent many days in the aftermath on prolonged train journeys with some of the most senior leaders from British Rail who had left at the time of privatisation and were consultants. They grumbled so much on our trips about the state of the industry that I put it down to the rantings of angry, slightly maverick old-timers. Doing the maths now, I realise they were the same age as I am now and still had many years left in the sector. Yet here they were, brimming with experience and capable of digging the railway out of the mire, but were left to comment in despair from the sidelines.
How many outspoken 50-somethings will be approached by GBR to contribute to the future? With each passing year, fewer people will recall previous structural changes and what worked and what didn’t. Let’s hope the leaders tomorrow will learn from history and not overly confidently reinvent it from scratch.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to Jonson Cox? You might think that such an inglorious chapter in one’s career would cause irreversible damage, but time’s a great healer, and moving into another sector can, like disappearing abroad for a spell, mask what happened, even in the internet age. Cox has done well for himself – he’s currently chair of the Port of London Authority, alongside non-executive roles. He has been a senior advisor to Arriva’s owners, I Squared Capital, since 2013 and was chair of Ofwat for nearly a decade.
It’s easy to be critical of Cox and incredulous at his achievements since his spell at Railtrack (which, on his LinkedIn profile, he merely states his job title and the company name). However, looking back, it was, in my view, a complete folly appointing someone so young and with zero rail experience as Cox, to such as role in an industry that demands unique technical expertise and at a time when it was trying to bed itself down after seismic structural change that had set itself up to be combative, uncollaborative in set-up and behaviours, as well as fragmented and on the back of a series of high profile disasters. The situation could have been alleviated had he had a supportive, experienced, and credible board – but he didn’t, and neither did he have one below him.
It’s easy to snipe from the sidelines, but if I were plunged into the circumstances that Cox faced, aged 43 in a new industry, would I also have been similarly risk-averse on the back of a disaster, such as Hatfield? The industry demonised Cox 25 years ago, but he was just a victim of a political framework that had pushed the rail industry to the brink.
Hatfield and its aftermath were, like no other incident, a metaphor for all the ills of a rotten industry, both in terms of leadership, inexperience, structure, and behaviour. It’s a relief that in recent decades, the industry hasn’t had to contend with the loss of life that those of us growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, then in the early stages of our career lived through with many more disasters and mishaps (I was on the train involved in the Cannon Street rail crash in 1991 and though it was a ‘near miss’ for me as I alighted at London Bridge, the spectre of that day never leaves me). However, I wonder if the younger generation can relate to the causes, direct or indirect, and the impact of disasters in the same way their predecessors do. On the 25th anniversary, the enquiry into the events that caused the 10:00 from London to Leeds on October 17 2000, should be compulsory reading for anyone creating and implementing the new set-up for UK rail.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alex Warner has over 30 years’ experience in the transport sector, having held senior roles on a multi-modal basis across the sector. He is co-founder of transport technology business Lost Group and transport consultancy AJW Experience Group (which includes Great Scenic Journeys). He is also chair of West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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