North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

If I did, it's unlikely she would pay any attention. Best I can do is to try to bring matters to a more widespread readership, in the hopes that it may cause some effect at the NYMR. We know that @Lineisclear visits here, for example, and he must have a hide like a rhinoceros if he doesn't pick up and pass on some of it. Probably his hide is rather thicker than that, though, so it will take a lot more barbed arrows to penetrate!

 

In a normal holiday week, when open to Whitby, are there as many as 107 people on the three Whitby trains at 0920, 1000 (ex Whitby), and 1200?

I would imagine the total would normally be higher, especially the 0920, which may load 200 or more.

Thomas week will need around 1000 seats sold per day to match the normal income of the standard service. With 11 Thomas trains per day, that's 91 on every train, daily.
I've seen some afternoon trains with just 4 seats sold, so far, and very few with more than 70 sold. There's 5 days left to book online.
Surely an event like this needs to be reasonably certain of doubling normal takings before being given the go ahead.
It all seems a bit high risk.

 

Ah, right, those could be used to apply upward force on the bridge structure.

Right, but how much load can they handle? I am concerned that the truss on the bottom now doesn't have the load-carrying capacity of the girder if the original drawings (although without a lot more information on both, it's impossible to say for sure).

The weight of the bridge's own structure (the 'dead load', in engineer-speak) is probably very considerable for a masonry bridge like this one; I would guess on the same order of magnitude as that of the train (the 'live load').

Noel

 

The bridge will weigh a lot more than any train, or at least the part of the train on the bridge. The point is not to take the weight of the bridge, but to help it to bear the weight of the train. Think of it as reinforcing, not supporting.

 

I think it would be better if the propping actually made contact with the bridge if it is to help it take the weight of anything but I’m no engineer.

Hopefully we will have all of the answers soon. My email contact has been in touch this morning to say they and other colleagues have finally reported their concerns about the appointment, condemning, procurement and propping to the charity commission based on the cost of the work and risk to the charity, here’s hoping that the CC has the time and energy to look into this big horrible mess and either put an end to the chatter or confirm that those concerned were right.

I’m not convinced that it will go anywhere but at least it sounds like some people are trying to get answers.

 

@Andy Moody : You may have had a point with your criticism of me if I was the only person expressing severe doubts about the management of the NYMR but the pevious post by @Wonkturntables, which seems to be from someone closer to the action than I am, ought to providing more than adequate grounds for concern - and I know of many more who feel the same. I have no confidence that the charity commission will do anything to respond, but at least when the NYMR finally goes bust they will not be able to deny that they were at least warned.

 

The structure of the bridge doesn't differentiate in any way between dead load and live load. (When doing finite element modelling of the bridge, one would of course have to, since the vectors - both axis and location - of the loads are not the same, between the two.) The structure of the bridge has to bear both, at the same time. A railway bridge in Scotland recently collapsed from dead load alone.

You are sort of correct that it is reinforcing, not supporting, but those aren't as discrete as one might think - as the share of the load taken by the propping increases, when it gets to 100%, it has transitioned from reinforcing to supporting.

Noel

 

The CC are a weak regulator, under resourced and with narrow terms of reference. As demonstrated elsewhere (see other threads here, or look up the Actors Benevolent Fund), they will run a mile from anything that looks like it might remotely be an internal dispute even (especially?) where that dispute is between “doing things right” and how they’re run now”.

As it happens, I would be surprised if they intervened in any case. The charity governance is all properly constructed and being operated according to the letter of the rules - and if as I presume this work is being done by the company wholly owned by the charity, it would be out of scope for the CC anyway.

The issues at NYMR are in a different category, relating to the strategic decisions made by trustees and their appointed managers. Regulators aren’t there to stop people making bad decisions - one of the key reasons why I’ve been so critical of the determination of @Lineisclear to frame accountability in terms of accountability to regulators.

 

If there’s no contact then what would be its purpose?

 

Perhaps it's just a working platform for those repairing the brickwork?
(Although nearly all related info from NYMR does say 'propping').

 

Judging from the photos, if it is a working platform for those repairing the brickwork, you’d hope they’d be pretty skinny!

Tom

 

It looks a pretty comprehensive job.

 

How can it be comprehensive when there doesn't seem to be anything in contact with the arch, at least at the upper, thinnest part of the masonry? Shouldn't there be some timber in there as well?

 

I’m not sure what your source is for that comment? If it’s the photo above, then there is an arch of steel seen below the masonry, and I’d be surprised if there weren’t packers in there as well?

 

What a wealth of structural engineering knowledge we have on this website!

 

Also, why should it be most in need of support at that point?
An arch thrusts outwards. It's thinnest there becuase it can be. Where the support will be needed depends very much on the mode of failure.

It's interesting to note that that the pic shows historical tie rods going accross the structure, which imply there has been a problem with sideways spread in the past, which is an unusual mode of failure in a bridge.

 

It doesn't look so bad from this angle. Did we find out exactly what is wrong with it?

 

I would expect themto have more support underneath if providing any lifting force - following the line of the screw portion to the ground. Is the river navigable btw?
Also, I'd not fancy liftting that bridge by hand, (for effort and H&S reasons), if there was any positive upward force, I'd expect it to have been powered, probably by hydraulics.

I suspect they are adjusters to bring packing into place.

What is interesting is that the screws we can see are at the shoulders rather than the crown.

If you think about the size and mass of a set of bridge girders on a railway bridge, the propping looks less sizeable than that (noting it is a multi girder system and the possible strengthening factor of the arch form). I'd assume it's therefore doing less work than the full weight.

I wonder if excessive deformation is the issue?
Or movement of the abutments

It doesn't look a terribly convenient set-up to work at the underside of the arch from.

 

Taking your previous comments into account, I find it strange that you haven't expected the CEO to personally inspect and agree the work done.

 

There were some photos (several pages ago) showing cracks and missing bricks from the bottom layer of the arch.