History - The Windscale Accident (1957)

[Pinus contorta]

Moderator note - split from

Closure of Bransty Tunnel (near Whitehaven) expected until further notice

Rail engineers are trying to find out how a mysterious orange-coloured water has started to enter Corkickle tunnel...

www.railforums.co.uk

Network Rail calls it "Whitehaven Tunnel" but locally you would tend to hear it called "Bransty Tunnel" or "Corkickle Tunnel".

Has it had its name changed recently for PR purposes? If you cast your eye down the line a few miles somewhere changed its name from Windscale to Sellafield didnt it.

 

[themiller]

Has it had its name changed recently for PR purposes? If you cast your eye down the line a few miles somewhere changed its name from Windscale to Sellafield didnt it.

The nuclear site is formed of 3 parts. Calder Hall is where the first Magnox station was built in the 1950s. Windscale is the site where UKAEA built the 2 piles for producing plutonium - one of which had the meltdown in the 1950s. Sellafield is where there was an explosives factory in WW2 which was subsequently the site of the majority of the nuclear reprocessing facilities on the overall site. The railway station at Sellafield was named by the railway when it built the line so the names go back a long time and were not changed after the Windscale accident.

 

[AndrewE]

The nuclear site is formed of 3 parts. Calder Hall is where the first Magnox station was built in the 1950s. Windscale is the site where UKAEA built the 2 piles for producing plutonium - one of which had the meltdown in the 1950s. Sellafield is where there was an explosives factory in WW2 which was subsequently the site of the majority of the nuclear reprocessing facilities on the overall site. The railway station at Sellafield was named by the railway when it built the line so the names go back a long time and were not changed after the Windscale accident.

The Windscale accident was actually a fire in the air-cooled graphite pile. It was very lucky that filters on the exhausts had been installed - called "Cockroft's Follies" by the detractors after the individual who mandated them - otherwise the effects on the N of England would have been far worse than they actually were...

 

[yorksrob]

The Windscale accident was actually a fire in the air-cooled graphite pile. It was very lucky that filters on the exhausts had been installed - called "Cockroft's Follies" by the detractors after the individual who mandated them - otherwise the effects on the N of England would have been far worse than they actually were...

The very distinctive building was visible from the railway until very recently (they were dismantling it I think, last time I went by.

 

[QueensCurve]

The station was called Whitehaven Bransty until 1968 and the signal box still is.

The station where my late father had his first job.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Saturday at 23:33 ==

The Windscale accident was actually a fire in the air-cooled graphite pile. It was very lucky that filters on the exhausts had been installed - called "Cockroft's Follies" by the detractors after the individual who mandated them - otherwise the effects on the N of England would have been far worse than they actually were...

Yes. A Fire in the reactor core which during operation was cooled by blowing a ton of air per second through it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Saturday at 23:34 ==

The very distinctive building was visible from the railway until very recently (they were dismantling it I think, last time I went by.

The chimney was visible from the railway, not the reactor building at its base.

 

[StoneRoad]

The very distinctive building was visible from the railway until very recently (they were dismantling it I think, last time I went by.

With very great care - as it still contains the filters which were useful in preventing a wider area getting contaminated in October 1957 ...

 

[AndrewE]

With very great care - as it still contain[s]ed the filters which were useful in preventing a wider area getting contaminated in October 1957 ...

it did, and I understand that it needed a very elaborate method statement and rigorous safety procedure to get it done at all - and I'm not surprised.

 

[yorksrob]

The chimney was visible from the railway, not the reactor building at its base.

With very great care - as it still contains the filters which were useful in preventing a wider area getting contaminated in October 1957 ...

it did, and I understand that it needed a very elaborate method statement and rigorous safety procedure to get it done at all - and I'm not surprised.

It was always a startling sight looming up when going past. I always looked out for it.

 

[QueensCurve]

With very great care - as it still contains the filters which were useful in preventing a wider area getting contaminated in October 1957 ...

I am fairly sure the filters came out in the early 1990s. They have certainly gone now.

 

[AndrewE]

I am fairly sure the filters came out in the early 1990s. They have certainly gone now.

You (I) live and learn... I was very surprised to read https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Cockcrofts-witness-final-removal-of-Windscale-gall

Both of the plutonium-producing piles were shut down following the 1957 fire. The contaminated filters themselves were removed shortly afterwards, and the chimneys sealed up to allow radiation levels to reduce before decommissioning work could start.

and

involved stripping out thermal insulation lining; taking down the concentrator; dismantling the filter in-fills;

so it seems that what you would expect to be the most active bits came out promptly, and removing the rest began in 2013. It makes you wonder whether need to get the plutonium out of the filters drove that initial action.

 

[najaB]

It makes you wonder whether need to get the plutonium out of the filters drove that initial action.

For a long time, Plutonium was the most expensive material on the planet, gram for gram. So almost certainly yes!