Derailment near Watford Junction (16 September 2016)

[Class 170101]

Slow Lines blocked => Stopping services diverted to Fast Lines (between Wembley North and Bourne End) => Disruption to/thinning out of Fast Line services

Would Watford North Jn have assisted here?

Its rather a long way from Wembley to Bourne End.

 

[33056]

Would Watford North Jn have assisted here?

Its rather a long way from Wembley to Bourne End.

Watford North Junction doesn't exist at present! It was meant to be installed and commissioned over Easter last year but work was postponed due to the landslip at Harbury, north of Banbury. If the work had gone ahead as planned it would have meant that both the WCML and Chiltern routes would have been closed at the same time.

 

[najaB]

Watford North Junction doesn't exist at present!

I think that's why the question was framed as 'would have' the junction have helped.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Is it being investigated by RAIB? Nothing on their website. On the TV news it showed one of their vans attending the site

 

[33056]

I think that's why the question was framed as 'would have' the junction have helped.

Oops, think I may have mis-understood the post In which case Watford North would almost certainly have helped as the incident was well clear of it's location.

 

[M7R]

Is it being investigated by RAIB? Nothing on their website. On the TV news it showed one of their vans attending the site

It will be investigated but normally it's not on the RAIB site for a good couple weeks, normally until they have the basic facts and time line inorder to give a brief over view of the incident and then the scope of the investigation.

 

[transmanche]

Is it being investigated by RAIB? Nothing on their website.

It normally takes a while for RAIB to make an announcement.

For example; regarding the fatality at Balham on 7 August, the RAIB formally announced its investigation on 31 August.

 

[oversteer]

RAIB @raibgovuk tweeted on Friday that they were gathering evidence on site.

Guess that counts as a formal announcement these days

 

[Crossover]

Did 350264 get to Watford Yard under its own power? Also, as I guess it headed South to get there, is it driveable from the damaged end? One guessed it may be as the damage is on the offside, but I guess it depends on what got damaged overall

As these are relatively new units, they will be repaired.
Thanks,
Ross

I'm sure similarly new units have been written off before (take 390033, though that was a slightly more major incident, granted)

 

[causton]

Did 350264 get to Watford Yard under its own power?

I was told under good authority a class 57 brought both the units there.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Would Watford North Jn have assisted here?

Its rather a long way from Wembley to Bourne End.

The issue is electrical isolation. They would have turned off the OHLE and on the down line the isolation would go all the way down to North Wembley (once again, been told by a reputable source so don't blame me if it's not correct ). This is (presumably) why Southern couldn't run a shuttle as far as Watford Junction, for example.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

A civil engineer's pedantic observation, but one which should encourage a bit of clarity. The sides of a cutting are absolutely not 'embankments'. An embankment is the opposite of a cutting, ie it's where excavated material has been placed to raise the track above original ground level.

You are right, of course.
But interestingly, today's Network Rail press release on completion of repairs says:

The slip on the embankment at the north entrance to the tunnel was hit by a southbound train on Friday, causing some of its front wheels to come off the tracks.
Another train, which entered the tunnel heading north at the same moment, clipped the southbound train.

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/passengers-on-move-again-after-watford-tunnel-reopens

 

[Pumbaa]

I was told under good authority a class 57 brought both the units there.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---




The issue is electrical isolation. They would have turned off the OHLE and on the down line the isolation would go all the way down to North Wembley (once again, been told by a reputable source so don't blame me if it's not correct ). This is (presumably) why Southern couldn't run a shuttle as far as Watford Junction, for example.

Not the case I don't think - OLE isolation can be very precise. There was a Watford - Euston shuttle planned for Saturday, operating out of the bay, which is why the Southerns were canned, but resourcing issues cropped up.

 

[The Planner]

Isolation diagram shows you can run into Watford from the south on the slows.

 

[OneOffDave]

once protection is in place and the site is safe then decisions would be made in the best interests of the passenger.

Stupid things like trying to lift a passenger of on an unsecured stretcher, or in a wheelchair would not be attempted unless there was an immediate emergency, such as fire.

Equally obviously you would not take a wheelchair passenger off without a chair and then leave them lying on the floor at the station. If there are people available to move a stretcher then they will be able to cope with moving a chair as well, it was only a transfer to another train, not a five mile hike down the track. I would expect luggage to have been taken as well.

You'd be surprised about what happens. I've been on exercises where the wheelchair users became hemmed in by hoses, chairs have been taken away and used to evacuate other people, evacuation training has been stopped as it's "too dangerous to practice evacuating wheelchair users". I've taken part in over 30 major incident exercises in my day job across the country and rarely seen it got right.

Has anyone on here seen a successful evacuation of a wheelchair user from a train? I've not yet found anyone with first hand knowledge of it being done.

 

[sd0733]

You'd be surprised about what happens. I've been on exercises where the wheelchair users became hemmed in by hoses, chairs have been taken away and used to evacuate other people, evacuation training has been stopped as it's "too dangerous to practice evacuating wheelchair users". I've taken part in over 30 major incident exercises in my day job across the country and rarely seen it got right.

Has anyone on here seen a successful evacuation of a wheelchair user from a train? I've not yet found anyone with first hand knowledge of it being done.

I did a train to train evacuation from one 350.to another a couple of years back. The train which had lost its pantograph had 2 wheelchairs on board and we managed to evacuate them and the other 150 odd passengers using the ramps to bridge the gap without issue. We managed to get the two wheelchair spaces lined up and they were fine. They were obviously quite happy as they were on my train a year or so later and they thanked me for coming to rescue them!

 

[OneOffDave]

I did a train to train evacuation from one 350.to another a couple of years back. The train which had lost its pantograph had 2 wheelchairs on board and we managed to evacuate them and the other 150 odd passengers using the ramps to bridge the gap without issue. We managed to get the two wheelchair spaces lined up and they were fine. They were obviously quite happy as they were on my train a year or so later and they thanked me for coming to rescue them!

Great. I'd expect that to work and even if you couldn't line the wheelchair spaces up, at least then you'd be able to get a wheelchair into the vestibule space. Not ideal but in the circumstances, perfectly acceptable. I've got no doubt that the staff would make all the efforts they could. From experience I've got a lot of faith in the staff but less in the systems.

 

[headshot119]

You'd be surprised about what happens. I've been on exercises where the wheelchair users became hemmed in by hoses, chairs have been taken away and used to evacuate other people, evacuation training has been stopped as it's "too dangerous to practice evacuating wheelchair users". I've taken part in over 30 major incident exercises in my day job across the country and rarely seen it got right.

Has anyone on here seen a successful evacuation of a wheelchair user from a train? I've not yet found anyone with first hand knowledge of it being done.

I've seen it done in an exercise, wheelchair passenger transferred to stretcher, stretcher fed out of door, stretcher carried to evacuation point, chair retrieved and passenger reunited with it. Still fairly long winded though, and needed 6 people to do it safely.

 

[theageofthetra]

Doesn't this all rely on the driver even knowing they have wheelchair passengers on board. More often than not with DOO you have no idea, which is a ridiculous situation.

 

[eMeS]

Has the debris been cleared, and are services back to normal?

 

[AM9]

Doesn't this all rely on the driver even knowing they have wheelchair passengers on board. More often than not with DOO you have no idea, which is a ridiculous situation.

Why not use the PA and ask for confirmation via the passcom. If the power isn't there for the system then it is a big stop so take a walk.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Has the debris been cleared, and are services back to normal?

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/passengers-on-move-again-after-watford-tunnel-reopens

 

[CharlieSpotted]

I did a train to train evacuation from one 350.to another a couple of years back. The train which had lost its pantograph had 2 wheelchairs on board and we managed to evacuate them and the other 150 odd passengers using the ramps to bridge the gap without issue. We managed to get the two wheelchair spaces lined up and they were fine. They were obviously quite happy as they were on my train a year or so later and they thanked me for coming to rescue them!

I've been involved in one where we went from a 323 to a 170 after a power failure just outside Wolverhampton. Likewise the wheelchair ramps were used to bridge the gap and at least one wheelchair was transferred successfully, as well as several elderly passengers. It was very smooth.

Frustrating having to wait for this type of rescue to be arranged, when I knew the station was only a couple of hundred meters down the track, though.

 

[Marklund]

You are right, of course.
But interestingly, today's Network Rail press release on completion of repairs says:

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/passengers-on-move-again-after-watford-tunnel-reopens

If it's the same team that run the Intranet, it's not a surprise.
Technical details are often wrong on there, and pointed out frequently.

 

[DarloRich]

looks like a train is en route from Northampton to Watford Yard. I assume this is to collect the damaged unit.

 

[Trog]

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/passengers-on-move-again-after-watford-tunnel-reopens

I wonder if the spill way in the left foreground is the repair from when the same thing happened in 1940?

 

[Elecman]

An Ambulance carry chair would be the safest way of evacuating a wheelchair bound person off a train, they would be strapped into the chair for safety.

 

[edwin_m]

The Network Rail structure gauging train already carries out mapping of structures but I don't know if it does for earthworks. In any case I expect many more sets of equipment would be needed to get to the frequency of visits necessary to catch this sort of event before it threatens the track. This event, as with many others, was probably triggered by heavy rain only a few hours before although there may be some detectable precursor before that. Many problem earthworks have some sort of static monitoring.

 

[Taunton]

This event, as with many others, was probably triggered by heavy rain only a few hours before although there may be some detectable precursor before that.

There was apparently an absolute cloudburst at just that point at around 6am. The adjacent westbound M25 at Hunton Bridge, which crosses the line right there, was also closed all morning due to flooding which had overwhelmed the drainage, never known to happen there before. Possibly the spillway overflowed as well.

 

[3DLaserMapping]

As previously suggested. Better Mapping technology is needed for railways to avoid these situations.

 

[IanD]

As previously suggested. Better Mapping technology is needed for railways to avoid these situations.

Any idea where they woud get such technology?