At about 0400 on Friday 8 December 2000, Train 828, a northbound express freight train, passed Signal 212 at Middleton at "Stop" and collided head-on with departing southbound express freight Train 951.
Three locomotive crew members received minor injuries. The locomotive on each train and a number of wagons were extensively damaged.
Safety issues identified included the control of locomotive engineers hours of duty, fatigue management and the ability of the locomotive vigilance system to overcome short-term attention deficits in time to prevent this type of collision.
In view of safety recommendations made to the operator in other Rail Occurrence Reports 00-115 and 00-117 relating to previous occurrences involving similar attention loss through microsleeps, no further safety recommendations were made to the operator.
