West Coast Railways probed over 'doors open' train movement

A steam train operator is being investigated after one of its trains was moved along a platform while its doors were open.

Passengers had started to board the West Coast Railways (WCR) service at Bath Spa station on 13 April, according to rail records leaked online.

WCR has only recently begun using the UK's mainline railway again after a month-long ban over safety concerns.

The firm said it took safety incidents "very seriously" and was investigating.

"Whilst this incident was relatively minor and no persons were injured, there was the potential for injury," added a spokesman for the Lancashire-based company.

The Office of Rail and Road - the rail regulator - also confirmed its inspectors were examining the details.

Information posted on an online forum, external was allegedly taken from a Network Rail (NR) incident log, although NR refused to confirm or deny its authenticity.

In the posting, detail was given of the actions after a WCR train "stopped short half way along the platform" before the doors were opened "and passengers started to board the train".

But "the train then started moving forwards along the platform with all the doors that had been opened, still open."

WCR blamed "a miscommunication about how to safely move the train" but said the only open doors were those adjacent to the platform and no persons boarded or alighted from, or were near, the moving train.

The firm was accused of breaching health and safety law last year when safety equipment was allegedly bypassed on a locomotive which caused it to pass a signal at danger and stop across a busy main line railway junction near Royal Wootton Bassett.

A high-speed train had passed over the junction less than a minute before.