To be honest on a motorway. There are lots of recovery vehicles around to remove the mess. The police investigation takes most of the time. I am not sure if that must be completed first. However once that is done they seem to be able to get wrecked cars on the back of lorries within 1 hour.
The emergency services gave the site back Friday night. It's RAIB. They don't have the staff
Indeed the accident report for Hither Green is just 38 pages, and I would be surprised if the report for Bedford is less than four times as long. Stonehaven runs to 298 pages.
When you read the accidents reports from that era, there is almost a congratulatory tone from the Inspecting Officer at the efforts to restore the service as quickly as possible. The railways were much more vital then of course, and there were plenty of diversionary options to choose from (with widespread route knowledge amongst crews). I feel that the railway just gives up all too easily these days.
How was it managed in the past?
most likely cut up onsite or left to the side, pre health and safety days.
When you look at the photos from Clapham Junction, some of the units didn't take much cutting up either.
Not while still on the running lines!
If a vehicle could be moved by rail then it would be placed onto "accommodation bogies" and hauled to the nearest depot or yard. Very badly damaged vehicles that physically could not be removed were cut up and taken away by wagon.
The past is in the past. And in terms of health and safety, I’m quite glad about that. There’s no room for rose tinted spectacles when it comes to that.
They are.
I wasn't wearing any.
Glad to hear that.
An utterly ridiculous comment. The work plan is to ensure that machinery and personnel are used correctly and to avoid further (structural or bodily) harm. The only planning that a crane crew should be doing on site would be under exceptional circumstances and after ’stepping back’.
Passenger stock with any degree of modernity had buckeyes or similar. (I’m not talking about Modernisation Plan DMUs here.)
Where the bogies are not completely detached will they want to preserve the integrity by strapping them up to the bodywork, or remove them and examine them as separate items?
IIRC there was an accident ?30 years ago where the MD of Baldwins Crane Hire sent his two biggest available cranes to the crash site the moment he heard about it. I am hoping there is a call-off contract with somebody already in place, otherwise in this more litigious era it might take several days just to sort out the paperwork.
They did actually learn lessons after Harrow and Wealdstone to be fair.
The motorways are also often extremely slow compared to other countries. Germany for example is much quicker, I bet Japan is as well.
Fair point.
Considering how long it took to move that derailed Javelin in Ramsgate nvestigation isn't the only factor
But you don't need to go back to the steam age to find quick reopenings as some of the comments above might suggest -- at Clapham Junction in 1988 the slow lines reopened in the evening of the day after the accident and the fast lines the next morning. The report has 212 pages, so they don't appear to have skimped on investigation. It probably helped that the stray wire that caused the accident was identified within hours.
