INCIDENT AT GROSMONT – Tuesday 15 November 2011

It all becomes clear, thank you. My apologies for listening to the rumour mill. Good to know that a cause has been found and that steps can be taken to prevent similar accidents in the future.

 

The buckeyes may reduce the damage/loss of life in an accident, but the whole thrust of the Railway Inspectorate/ORR is to reduce the likelihood of accidents in the first place.

 

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There are many instances of posts coming back to haunt you.

Therefore, consider what you write, think is it factual, and if I was challenged could I prove it...legally if required.

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If you don't believe it can happen to you read the story of 6024

 

CMS 123
Job no. 408
Does the handbrake work?
Wind the wheel until it stops, get down on the ground, kick the brake blocks. Are they hard on the wheels? Yes or No?

Sounds easy to critisize, doesn't it!
There but for the grace of god, go I. etc.....

 

LNER teak stock has been in some very nasty accidents indeed and stood up very well. (Castlecary, Welwyn North are a couple of examples). The LNER stopped building them because they became very expensive to build, not because of safety. I doubt anything safer was built until the BR Mk2's.

 

How many of us, who work on coaches have done just that? normally, up to now you only check the linkage when something gets reported , but if it now means that you check handbrake linkage at frequent intervals its got to be better than another accident.

one thing that shocked me is that because the pin sheered and part of the linkage came partially disconected resulting with the handwheel appearing to be fully on when it wasnt, how many guards or fitters would have found the fault when doing the normal checks?

 

Maybe the Pullman cars, which were pretty tough? There is a photo in "Disaster down the line" (JAB Hamilton) of a Pullman car that hit the bridge in the Sevenoaks disaster broadside on, with very little damage. Not one of the occupants in that carriage was injured, though in total 13 people were killed in other vehicles.

There is also a photo from Castlecary, showing a Gresley teak vehicle (apparently the third vehicle in the train) snapped in two, though the force of that collision was considerable, and the coach in question had ridden up over the wreckage in front and come to rest perched on the tender of the engine. The first quarter of that carriage looks severely damaged, though the rest of the carriage looks to have stood up remarkably well.

Looking at the remains of older carriages involved in collisions such as Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Abermule etc is truly horrifying, even when there was no fire to follow on (as all to often happened in the days of gas lighting).

Tom

 

Well, exactly. At Castlecary the express was doing 60+ when it hit a standing train with the brakes on. There would be casualities even in Mk1's in an impact of that nature. But that coach (it was one of the images I had in mind) survived with most of its passenger area retaining its integrity, even though its obviously a write-off. The Pullman at Sevenoaks was written off as well, so I don't think it had 'very little damage' although again it has done its job and protected its passengers while the other contemporarary coaches around it did not.

To be fair I think Gresley used the Pullman coaches as the standard his own coaches should reach. He certainly seems to have copied some things from them.

What I'm trying to counter is the idea that because coaches are wooden they are necessarily highly dangerous in an impact - it doesn't follow.

 

Consider Mosquito aircraft, Morgan cars, etc.

 

Re: INCIDENT AT GROSMONT – Tuesday 15 November 2011

Very interesting photographs. I am restoring an LMS brake van and will be crawling under to inspect the brake linkage and all split pins at the first opportunity. My van last went through Shildon in 1979 and perhaps no-one has looked since. I wonder how many railways could put their hand on heart and say they have been doing such inspections on all stock regularly.

On a broader front, there seems to have been quite few disturbing incidents of one sort or another over the last few years. I'm not pointing a finger at anyone in particular, they may just have been unlucky. Heritage railways are getting bigger and busier and more adventurous, pushing the envelope of their usual operations in one way or another. But...back in the early eighties people like me were working generally under the supervision of older men with long experience of railway work in the steam age. Many of them are no longer alive or active, have we lost their expertise or are we doing enough to ensure it is passed on while there is still time?

How many people standing for the board at an AGM have a full understanding of the obligations of a railway company director, especially with regard to safety? Perhaps it is time we all had a long hard look at our own activities.

Tim

 

Re: INCIDENT AT GROSMONT – Tuesday 15 November 2011

HMRI are concerned at recent events within the heritage railway movement. Until a couple of years ago, such incidents were on a downward trend with an acceptable level of incidence, if that is the right phrase to use given that no incidents are acceptable. However, in the last couple of years such incidents have increased significantly. They have called a meeting of all heritage railway chairman, MD's and GM's for next March where the law will be laid down.

 

Re: INCIDENT AT GROSMONT – Tuesday 15 November 2011

Two runaway incidents on heritage lines within a single week - whatever the eventual cause(s) may be proved - inevitably concentrates the attention, not least for ORR. Whilst there's sure to be an element of luck involved, these and previous incidents over the last few years could well offer low-hanging fruit to anyone with a vested interest who wants to advance an argument that the herigate rail industry is becoming more of a liability. It would be good to be able to counter that.

So here are a few such points: I'd argue that the reporting back of incidents, to RAIB, ORR, HRA etc has improved over the years I've been involved with preserved steam. No, I don't propose to enlarge on that with examples as it could implicate people I like and respect. Suffice to say there's much less of a culture of keeping quiet about stuff these days; and I'd say that's a good thing.

As others point out, there are fewer 'old hands' about to pass on the skills and disciplines of former practice. This is indisputable; I'd suggest this cuts both ways. I've had plenty of (often very very) bad advice from 'old hands' in the past - some of whom clearly believe(d) an amateur part-time railway should be run as if it had virtually unlimited resources of manpower and cash. Smaller, poorer railways have to work much smarter; sometimes this in itself will mean we slip up.

The financial climate now forces many railways to be open far more days than they were, say, 15 years ago, with more stock running more mileage and less 'downtime' for maintenance. This also can divert staff from workshop duties into operational work; on smaller lines which need to have multi-skilled staff this effect is all the greater.

And of course, much of the infrastructure is that much older too.

Modern safety management systems need constant work to keep them up to date and practicable. ORR is (in my view rightly) very hot on this at the moment, and the sad fact is that some (several? many?) heritage lines don't yet have good enough SMS. There can be an attitude to overcome that 'we don't need all this paperwork'/ 'this line has been accident-free for years' etc. To those who believe this is an exaggeration: I quote both (irony-free) statements verbatim, from volunteers on a line ORR had visited not long before.

 

Re: INCIDENT AT GROSMONT – Tuesday 15 November 2011

We should just bear in mind that in the history of railways there is a tendencey for 'incidents' to occur in clusters for no particular reason. Though I agree it does no harm for HMRI to issue strong reminders, especially as it seems liklely we are in for a difficult few years in terms of funding and volunteer availablility. The gang I work on - which does weekly carriage safety inspections in the season - has been struggling for numbers for two years now.

 

Actually it was three runaway incidents in six days as a diesel shunter ran off for a short distance at another railway, luckily again no one hurt, and it was stopped by buffers at the end of the line it was on.

 

Some railway accident are fairly alarming; there must be something missing in the technical senses.Someone talked about high-speed trains that top at 578 km/h, but they didn't have any "safety" at all.