Abstract
The rail industry harbours a very strange and powerful acronym - the ‘SPAD’: to the general public, it is a front-page newspaper headline that strikes the imagination and conjures up doubts over railway safety; to the knowing passenger, it is an event to file away to the back of the mind in order
to make room for more pressing day-to-day concerns; to the General Manager, it is long hours spent deliberating over their rail network, entertaining hope but bracing for inevitability; and to the train driver, it is an emotional response beyond words. All this in a four-letter acronym that means a signal has been passed at danger.[...]
