Swithland Steam Gala 26th – 28th April 2013

No, it is a Lie-Bye Siding.

 

Interesting, but yes I suppose so, however in general they are going to use the. convenient loop which has a platform for either train, not one that doesn't.

 

My thoughts exactly. The incident looks much worse than the circumstances that caused it.

 

For the avoidance of confusion and doubt:

There are no loops at Quorn.
There is an Up Main and Down Main.
Additionally there is a crossover road, Down Lie-Bye Siding, an Up Reception North Siding and an Up Reception South Siding.

That's it.

 

Sorry yes, my loop should of been 'loop'. Albeit a bloody long one

 

It's very unlikely RAIB will investigate the incident as it did not happen on a running line, nor it it involve (thankfully) injury or passengers.

Nevertheless, without speculating it does look like a very serious failure in procedure. And really that's the nub of the issue.

Clearly it is a very unfortunate situation. It's highly unlikely that somebody has gone out of their way to involve themselves in an accident, and you can't help but feel for the people involved - especially if there are contributory factors. That said, it isn't possible to draw any firm conclusions about what led up to the accident and it is somewhat offensive to do so. For example, one could say the signalman forgot to check the route before giving authorisation. But we don't know this for sure, there could have been a breakdown in communications at some stage between the crew or another third party. Clearly the signalman would have to take lead responsibility in safety critical communications, but he cannot necessarily ensure that others carry out their duties correctly.

In short I think speculation is a dangerous game, and should be avoided.

Having said that, the Great Central whether anybody likes it or not carries fare paying passengers. Very often these are families that have a choice between other attractions in the area (such as Alton Towers, a Stately home and so on). They have a right to expect their needs whether safety or customer service are looked after, as they would do if they went to a theme park.

It is a huge PR gaff to to hide behind the curtain of officialdom. People need reassuring the incident will be fully and professionally investigated, including contributory factors. The public need to be reassured people are well trained, know their duties and lines of responsibility, lessons will be learned and things put in place to stop it happening again. On a wider point the heritage rail sector needs to learn from it.

As tempting as it is for those involved to defend what has gone on in the guise that 'everyone makes mistakes', while this may be true, if you use an airline whose excuse was much the same after a major crash, you would think twice about using them. Clearly this is nowhere near on the same scale, but something has gone badly wrong, and 25,000 you tube views is tragic for the GCR. Most people will view the footage and conclude this is far from a professional outfit. It's not to say that it is not professional, however it is not about the actualities, but the *perception*.

In conclusion the GCR and the heritage sector needs to nip it in the bud, because failure to do so is tragic on a much wider scale.

 

It doesn't have an FPL and isn't passed for passenger use as it is maintained as a siding (condition of track etc).

I'd be interested to hear why you feel point 9 applies to a low speed derailment on a set of traps in a siding - I think it's already had it's worst outcome! I would be very surprised if no one had told the RAIB to be honest, I suspect they just aren't that interested in it.

 

Whilst it is true that the GCR have no obligation to make any further information public about this, the fact is that somebody screwed up big time in full view of the visiting public at a major gala, so, when investigations are complete, a full statement of how this happened would clear the air and, hopefully, put an end to rumours.

 

Edited. Perhaps overly sarcastic.

 

Very sad. Hope there is not too much damage to engine and tender. I assume there are some private channels for Heritage railways sharing the eventual results of the inquiry, so that others can learn and hopefully prevent another similar accident.

46118

 

I assume 46521 will have to have a thorough checking over to assess the damage before any repairs are even started before it moves under its own power again
46521 not going to Ruddington this weekend, but 78019 going in its place according to GCRN website
So a like for like replacement

 

From what I heard the guard gave the right of way and the loco crew forgot to check the road and signal was set.

 

incorrect.

 

From this week's newsletter:

Last weekend saw the debut of our Swithland Gala. The attendance was extremely good over the whole three days and it seems to be an event which we must repeat - that's very much part of the feedback. Alfred and Judy, the two tiny saddle tanks from Cornwall proved very popular, with the Webb Coal Tank and King Edward II also stars of the show.
As many of you will be aware already, Saturday morning was marred by an incident at Quorn - this was at very low speed and involved 46521 being derailed in the trap points. The first thing to say is that no-one was injured - metal can always be replaced or repaired, but humans can't - nevertheless for the operational staff involved such events can be traumatic.
In terms of the event, we were able to resume running trains in less than an hour. This reflects the fantastic response by our Operations team and the collective expertise from right across GCR which was on the scene at Quorn within minutes. The co-operation by all concerned in working together was a tribute to GCR. Elsewhere in this newsletter you can read some of the tributes received from visitors who recognised what was achieved.
The recovery operation was planned throughout the afternoon and began in earnest in the early evening. The loco and tender arrived back in Loughborough at 2 am on Sunday morning. Again, hats off to everyone who worked in such an exemplary fashion in the cold and arduous conditions. The teamwork was awesome to me as a virtual bystander.
Richard Patching (General Manager)

Well, unlike most of our galas this one did not leave us unscathed, and we have a lot of work to do. Details of the Ivatt 2's excursion onto the ballast are reported elsewhere, I will just comment on the damage as I see it from a poke around underneath. As the loco was moving backwards, you would expect more damage to the tender, and this is what we have. In fact the engine seems to be almost unmarked, except for ballast scraping on the bottom of the spring hanger bolts. We did, however, have to cut the drawbar, on which the loco and tender apparently lurched apart. The main damage to the tender is to the brake gear, with the massive cross beams being, bowed up in the middle. One guard iron is also off. Not sure how long it will take to rectify, but wouldn't mind betting that the paperwork will take longer that the engineering. We have already located a replacement drawbar.
David Matthews (Shed News section)

 

That's all (relatively) good news. Interesting that a replacement drawbar is available. Is this a loan one or a spare from somewhere?

 

Where there is no actual RAIB investigation, do Heritage Railways privately share the results of their internal investigation, so that others may learn from what happened?

46118

 

NO!

RAIB was formed to investigate and publish reports that we could learn from. Anything else is privately thrashed out within a railway. And no just because it happened at a Gala in front of a load of Veg does not mean that the GCR HAVE to publish their report publicly.

Cheers

Sniffy...

 

Speaking generally, and not specifically about this case . . .

I would imagine that, to an extent, any promulgation of findings between different Railways on these matters would largely depend on the nature of the incident.

If, for example, a piece of equipment in widespread use on heritage railways was to fail in a novel way, causing an incident which was outside of the remit/interest of the RAIB, but it was reasonable to expect that the same situation might arise elsewhere, then I have no doubt that the railway identifying the problem would let others know, either directly or through the HRA or other professional body.

However, if an incident is as a result of a common and widely occurring failure of equipment, or procedures, then I would not see that anything would be gained or learned by the Railway concerned formally notifying their contemporaries.

As a slightly topical example of this, see how many Board of Trade, Ministry of Transport or HMRI Accident Reports you can find which deal with the derailment of a non passenger working on a trap point, in a siding, where no passenger lines were affected. NR, BR. the Big Four, the pre Grouping companies . . . none of them published reports into this sort of incident.

Flip

Edited: Forgot the MoT (not for the first time ! )