Fire at Mid Hants

The diesel shunter keeps being referred to as 'a Class 12'. There is only the one Class 12, No. 15224 of the Spa Valley Railway - is this the loco involved, or is it the more likely Class 11, No. 12049 based on the MHR? How can these two be confused? You wouldn't dismiss it by calling it 'a Lord Nelson' if it was 'King Arthur ' No. 30777 would you? I know it is 'only' a diesel shunter, but it is still important to some of us who are not 100 per cent steam biased,
especially so if it is the sole-surviving Southern diesel-electric shunter. And who says it's totally destroyed anyway?
Peter Nicholson

 

Not a very pleasant reference to the Mid Hants is it.
If anyone from the Mid Hants objects to the page they can join Wikipedia and edit i.e. remove the text themselves. I have done it on a subject that I felt was not right.

 

I should think the coaches would be gone i'm sad to say, i dont see what els in there would make that much fire, its all metal and concrete.

 

Yes such a page is rather sad isn't it, however removing that sort of thing is difficult. Witness the many reports of aircrashes or railway incidents on Wiki (some very minor), and the generally well funded transport co legal depts have not been able to get them removed, so I suspect the page will remain unless is makes unsubstantiated allegations.

 

I think it's time for fire sprinkler systems in all railway sheds (carriage & wagon, Loco sheds etc). I know that this would be very exspensive, but it is horrible to see railway stock destroyed or badly damaged when folk have struggled to restore it in the first place.

For Example the Seven Valley Railway carriage shed is a fantastic carriage shed to keep coaches out of the elements, but a fire could destroy a fair few carriages which could be difficult if not impossiable to replace.

The Swanage railway is building a carriage shed and the Strathspey has just had one built, but i suspect will not have much fire susprestion equipment to prevent a bad fire.

Sadly you can't protect stock out side in sidings, they will always be at some risk.

If a fire did start for example during a non railway running day in the week, if the alarm was raised would the fire brigade be able to get to the fire when the site is locked up?
Do we need a caretaker on site at all times for example?
The Bowes railway, Swansea Vale railway, Seven Valley railway, Bluebell railway and now the Mid Hants railway have suffered in recent times, we need to look at our options, I just hope that some rolling stock will be restorable after this tragic event.
My best wishes go out to those staff and volunteers who have suffered from this disasterous fire.

 

Exeter, I went round the SVR carriage shed when it was first opened, and the place bristles with fire detection and warning systems, no doubt connected to a central control room somewhere. It also has automatic-opening vents in the roof so that if a fire occurs, it will be vented upwards rather than "along" a rake of carriages.
Maybe in those circumstances sprinklers are not necessary, although of course they are the ultimate protection.

 

Belt and braces is always the best way with fire prevention measures.

 

Fear not Peter. I saw 15224 tucked up in the yard at Tunbridge Wells tonight so it is more likely the Class 11 you refer to.

Matt

 

HI,

Information about the history of 12049 can be found here.

http://www.preservedshunters.co.uk/psh_shunter.php?class=11&loco=12049

 

Unfortunately water can do as much damage as a fire - google the B&O museum at Baltimore to see the damage a sprinkler system can do.

These things, like so much, are best left to the experts to design

 

I was under the impression that the B&O Museum's problem was caused by snow collapsing the roof

Regards

 

Initially yes, but the collapse of the roof sheared the sprinkler control system and so the sprinklers then poured water into the museum.

Ask anyone who has been flooded about the damage water does.

 

I should have thought it blinding obvious how such confusion would arise...you only need someone with only a small bit of railway knowledge to edit class 11 to class 12 when they see the number on the loco, not knowing its a pre-TOPS number.
I hope its restorable and the other items,especially the dining car....(brings back painful memories to me)

 

Just thinking back to that trip round the new SVR carriage shed, this building which is five-eights of a mile long, is divided internally by a solid wall, so fire-wise there is in effect two buildings, each with two roads. Also, it was surprising to see that each outside side wall had an open section along its full lemgth, covered only by a mesh grill. Thinking back, I recall that the idea of that was to avoid the "tunnel" effect of a fire in such along building.ie if there is a fire, it remains localised. There is also --as a fire precaution--a roadway width all the way down each side.
But in any situation there is only so much you can do. Nothing is perfect. At least the fire wall between the carriage shop and the boiler shop appears to have held at Ropley.

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the original intention of the designers of the building at Ropley had been to separate the C&W shop from the boiler shop because it was the boiler shop that was perceived to have been the fire threat. If this is so then it is ironic that this fire started in the C&W section.

We will, of course, have to wait to see just what happened in this instance, but I would hope that other workshops would make a point of reviewing their fire precautions, cleanliness of the premises, and their electrical systems now rather than wait for for the report.

And I do agree with the comments above re the effectiveness of sprinkler systems.

Regards

 

In no sense is this an attempt to comment on what has happened at Ropley, but in terms of fire precautions, working practices are as important as systems built into the building. For example if you are cleaning up a metal chassis or bogie with grinder/wire brush you risk creating sparks which could sit in any pile of saw dust/dry wood scraps/paper that is on the floor or trapped in the running lines. The problem is we are often not dealing with ideals - dragging the carriage out of the shed to grind the chassis would be good from a fire risk perspective, but if its chucking it down outside you risk soaking exposed woodwork in the body. Its also about what else is sitting around - a few paint brushes left to soak in a bucket of thinners would be a good potential source of fuel - but on the other hand, brushes do need cleaning. Chuck into that mix the perennial difficulty of managing volunteers that you want to give up their time for nothing so you can't be too bossy with them about untidy habits and it starts to become obvious why problems can still arise.

In an ideal world, storage of carriages would be seperated from working areas, with no working permitted in storage areas (including painting due to chemicals) which removes almost everything bar electrical faults as a source of fire. Working areas should be small enough to limit the amount of valuable stock being worked on, and be small enough to keep clean, with ideally chemical processes like painting etc kept seperate from other processes like body and chassis work.

Back in the real world most lines are lucky if they aren't having to position their work to avoid the leak in the roof of the one shed they've got. Hopefully if there are lessons to be learned they can be communicated to other lines - whether the atmosphere is right for them to be made fully public (especially given that disgraceful wiki page) is another question.