Enhance fire protection by reviewing fuel tank standards and repositioning vulnerable tanks

The following measures should be considered with a view to enhancing protection against fire: (i) a review of Group Standards in respect of improved crash resistance of fuel tanks; (ii) consideration of the feasibility of reducing fuel inventories and of utilising smaller fuel tanks; (iii) in respect of frontal impacts, consideration of the repositioning of fuel tanks away from the leading ends of trains from behind bogies wherever this is practicable; (iv) avoidance of placing fuel tanks in exposed and vulnerable locations; (v) examination of the use of additives to reduce the propensity of a fuel to atomise; (vi) the employment within fuel tanks of internal flexible linings or a honeycomb construction; (vii) consideration of the most appropriate material for fuel tanks; and (viii) recognition of the need for supporting theoretical and experimental work in respect of the foregoing (para 13.27).