CathEx Southend-Bristol 7th March/Wootton Bassett Incident

On the move again, 90 late.

 

Good to hear that

 

My first mainline steam outing of 2015 and also my first steam shot taking using my telescopic pole. Not quite how I'd have liked it, but 'Mayflower' was rather throwing the exhaust up a bit! Taken on the approach to Junction Road junction, on the Gospel Oak - Barking line, which will soon change considerably when electrification of the missing sections starts.


61306 Upper Holloway 7-3-15 (V19334) by TimEaster, on Flickr

I have to say, having seen her in the flesh, she looks utterly gorgeous!

Cheers,
Tim

 

60163 at Hanwell:



34067 at Chippenham:

 

Nice pic and just goes to show that there's more to life than BR black.

 

Thankyou Ian! Yes, it does look rather fabulous in green, especially with the British Railways wording on the tender. Would be nice to hope that three locos could be in this scheme along side each other and indeed in steam one day.....

Cheers,
Tim

 

Tangmere's arrival at Swindon

 

Was at Crofton with a relatively small gallery. Unfortuately, the light dipped just as Tangmere got to where I'd framed the shot

Losing The Light by D1059, on Flickr

 

Two from The Southall to Bristol leg.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/25640353@N05/16580067740/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/25640353@N05/16147526243/

 

Today's Steam Railway has a rather sensational report that the above was apparently not the case and Tangmere overshot red signal by 700 yards and avoided a collision with an HST "by seconds". Apparently now being investigated by ORR and RAIB,although on RAIB website under "current investigations" there is no mention of the incident. Given that there is absolutely no chance of WCRC making any comment,does anyone know any more of this?

Is this just mischief-making by Steam Railway,although the story appears well-researched including a quote from a named NR spokesman? It seems unbelievable that had the above happened the train was allowed to continue after a delay at Swindon as it was.

 

seems stranger that this is the first and only report

 

Sounds slightly like the tangmere blowback on the Seaton Sea wall incident

 

Whilst it pains me to defend SR, they are there to report news which affects the movement, be it good bad or indifferent - as a specialist publication i suspect their stories don't make much difference its already well into the public domain - the people who matter with this NR are already fully aware.

One matter that caught my eye in the story is that the way they have described it doesn't actually seem to make sense from an operational point of view (although this may be my understanding being deficient) , they suggest the red was protecting the junction which was set for a Swansea London train and that Tangmere passed the red and ended up across the junction - in passing a signal at danger would she not come to grief at the junction which was set against her or via some other safety device?

No idea but suggests that the SR story should not be considers gospel either

 

I would have thought, that had this been a full blown SPAD, by what 700 yards? Nearly half a mile? the fan would have been spreading brown stuff around big time and everyone and his mother would smell the stench,.

 

It depends how far away from the junction signal SN45 is located. Signals are often placed well in advance of the junction they are protecting. The article also mentions a stone terminal, but doesn't show its position. If that leads off the Bath line west of the main junction, and SN45 protects it too, then 700 yards from the junction with the up Badminton line doesn't seem so unlikely. As for the "run through" - it depends which line the train was "across" when it stopped. It's possible that the train was fouling the down Swansea line, which the up Bath line must cross with a plain crossing, but not the up Badminton line. It's even possible that the train was fouling the up Badminton line but stopped short of the switch rails, so it did not "run-through" the points. It sounds like it was close, and very lucky not to be worse than it was.

If SN45 was at danger, then there should have been at least one signal before it showing caution (yellow) in which case Tangmere's driver would have been braking, expecting to stop before the junction. If there was no such caution signal, then the train might have still been doing 60-70 mph when the driver sighted the red signal, in which case to stop before the junction was pretty good going.

The fact that Tangmere was allowed to proceed with 1Z67 is a pretty good indication that the signalling was at fault. If there was a suspicion that either the loco or the rolling stock was even partly at fault, the train would either have been terminated at Swindon, or an alternative loco sent for. I suppose that if the driver was suspected then he might have been replaced and the train allowed to continue, but where would a replacement have come from? Unless a relief driver was on the train, they'd have been stuck rather longer than they were.

One problem with the SR article is that it doesn't make any of this clear. All it says is that the charter was allowed to proceed on its journey. If you don't read it carefully and sceptically, then you might assume that either the train or its crew were somehow at fault, or that the future of mainline steam is somehow threatened by this incident.

 

Think the chances of SR getting a scoop out of Carnforth soon, are negligible if the reporting is out......

 

A post on WNXX some days later confirmed that a SPAD alert was published - if I understand correctly this term only applies to what were formally regarded as Category A events, rather than what are now described as Technical or Signaller SPARs (signal passed at red) which presumably doesn't bode well.

 

RAIB involved.
http://www.raib.gov.uk/publications/current_investigations_register/150307_wootton_bassett.cfm