Pendolino derailment at Greyrigg

[Mojo]

It is quite a long way from London however, I'm sure there can't be that many people who choose to do such a long journey.

Additionally, in my experience, the rush hour leaving London, especially those northern stations which aren't convenient for the majority of employment, such as City workers don't start to get busy until about 1730, as those make their way to stations on tubes, buses and taxis from their place of employment.

 

[87015]

Also, 111 passengers sounds not many for a peak time Friday evening departure from Euston.

North of Preston/Lancaster you'll be surprised how empty most Euston-Glasgow's are.
Unless things have changed drastically in the few years since i was up there reguarly the front coach would normally be 90% cranks.

Friday's earlier trains used to be the busy ones - 1430, 1530 out of Euston.

Also isn't there the Euston-Edinburgh run in front of that service these days... Thankfully it seems the 1715 was relatively empty, presumable especially at the front.

 

[class 313]

Oh dear. I take it thats poor maintenence (or lack of)...
Who's Carnforth PW area contractor then?

Network Rail do it all... Contract work went out with RailTrack

 

[Tom]

It has been announced today that class 90 locos will be hired to haul mkIII stock following Friday's derailment. It has not yet been announced who will loan the stock. It has also not been announced which services the set will run on. Also, be aware that as VWC train crews do not sign class 90s, it could be some time before the stock comes into passenger service.

That was on the cards from Saturday morning!

As yorkie said, the same diagram as per the 87.

 

[Humberside]

The Transport Secretary has given a statement in the House of Commons on the derailment.

As a side note he revealed he is a regular user of the sleeper and would have been due to use it on Friday Night

 

[adambro]

It's with great concern that I read the RAIB interim report with regards to the cause of the accident, especially since I traveled over the points in question about 2 weeks before the derailment. This just seems to be a repeat of Potters Bar.

How many more points are there on the network waiting to fail with such consequences?

I note the NMT went over the points on 21 Feb, exactly two weeks after I did. Hopefully this will be able to reveal the condition of the points at that time.

I accept that there is never going to be 100% safety, but the same problem shouldn't be happening again.

 

[Mojo]

Friday's earlier trains used to be the busy ones - 1430, 1530 out of Euston.

Yes, in addition to my comment above, IME not many city workers work the full day on Friday, and many don't go in at all. The woman in the ticket office told my Mum not to bother reserving a seat in 1st class on a Friday morning, and it was almost empty compared to every seat being filled M-Th.

 

[Humberside]

Virgin could have used the S&C over the weekend as the engineering work was cancelled. In the end only freight was diverted, though as posted earlier VWC are using the S&C for one service a day

http://www.settle-carlisle.org/news/index.cfm?categoryID=2&id=82

 

[voyagerdude220]

From the report:

There were 111 passengers and 4 staff on the train.

Only 4 staff? Driver, train manager, and only 2 catering staff for both 1st and second class? In my experience, there are more on-train staff than that on Pendolinos.

Also, 111 passengers sounds not many for a peak time Friday evening departure from Euston.

CC

I was thinking exactly that for the passenger count- I travelled on this train between Euston & Preston a while back, and it was around 80% full in FC alone.

For Staff- Your certainly correct.

1 Driver
1 TM
1 RSM, i've seen 2 or 3 on Pendos before.
At least 3 FC hosts on Pendos- Do they have more on Primo services?

I often also find at least one member of staff in coach K,

Having just seen the latest post, I woludn't know about Friday in London being a half/shorter day for most London bussiness' .

 

[Tom B]

Yeah but road vehicles are significantly less well built and because of their weight subject to generally great deceleration forces. As you drive along in a bus, it's stop-start most of the time.

As one who's been wearing the pithy 'lap' seat belts provided on service buses when they have crashed, even at a low speed, they cause much more harm than good, leaving you with pain around the stomach where it digs in. Much less would have been caused had I elected to not wear the belt, and simply been brought to a halt by my legs colliding with the seat in front.

Plus there's also the thing of what happens on a 125mph train which has crashed with scared punters with seatbelts, and how that causes a rescue nightmare...

 

[Nick W]

I would just like to to say that this accident is nothing like potters bar. At Potter's bar, the points had been identified for replacement 6 months before the incident, but instead had a dodgy patch up.

These points appeared to be fine before the incident, and suddenly the a stretcher bar and nuts inconviently aparantly missing or lay in a ballast and the locking bar inconviently has loose nuts. Despite other trains using the points and extensive inspection.

Hopefully the footage from the flying banana will be useful, and until that is analysed I am not satisfactory that maintenance is an issue.

How many more points are there on the network waiting to fail with such consequences?

With the greatest of respect to your concern, I highly doubt that there will be any facing points "waiting" to fail.

I note the NMT went over the points on 21 Feb, exactly two weeks after I did. Hopefully this will be able to reveal the condition of the points at that time.

That's what I'm hoping too.

 

[First ScotRail]

North of Preston/Lancaster you'll be surprised how empty most Euston-Glasgow's are.
Unless things have changed drastically in the few years since i was up there reguarly the front coach would normally be 90% cranks.

It varies on what time you travel and on what day Saturday is always busy and so is the school holidays to the extent of standing from Lancaster-Carlisle then it quietens a little.
I would think that the 90 + Mk3's would be on Liverpool/Birmingham services as glasgows i would suspect virgin would want it to be only pendolinos?

 

[voyagerdude220]

It varies on what time you travel and on what day Saturday is always busy and so is the school holidays to the extent of standing from Lancaster-Carlisle then it quietens a little.
I would think that the 90 + Mk3's would be on Liverpool/Birmingham services as glasgows i would suspect virgin would want it to be only pendolinos?

How about mk3s from Preston or Manchester?

I've been thinking recently of how hard it would be to do loco-hauled trains over the weekend when i'm not working.

 

[micgent]

As a Joe public, im looking for some expert knowledge.
The Train driver has been commended and referred to as a hero.
With all due respect to the driver, not wanting to belittle his actions, in a terrible situation.
But what control does a train driver have in a derailment.
Once the the dead man handle is released or emergency brake applied then can anything else be done?

micgent

 

[voyagerdude220]

As a Joe public, im looking for some expert knowledge.
micgent

Welcome to the forum Micgent. The phrase i quoted rules me out from answering

 

[Nick W]

Once the the dead man handle is released or emergency brake applied then can anything else be done?

Presumably use the NRN to try and get anything else on the line stopped and electricity isolated (if that hadn't already happened in a few ms).

 

[CallySleeper]

It has been announced today that class 90 locos will be hired to haul mkIII stock following Friday's derailment. It has not yet been announced who will loan the stock. It has also not been announced which services the set will run on. Also, be aware that as VWC train crews do not sign class 90s, it could be some time before the stock comes into passenger service.

90018 allocated to run test runs to BHI on Wednesday with a mkIII set.

 

[Nick W]

No record?

Sorry but how hard would it be to have a spreadsheet for every facing point in the country on a central server, to store a simple but effective log of inspections to points.

eg
4-Feb-07 Inspection due Points inspected thoroughly Good condition
18-Feb-07 Inspection due Points inspected Visually No faults found
21-Feb-07 Inspection due

Then someone from the tamping crewe suspects something is wrong on say 23-Feb-07, goes on the spreadsheet, see no inspection report, adds
23-Feb-07 Points lacking quality, urgent thorough inspection needed

He/she then calls up a member of managment who follows up the missing report, aranges for someone to be sent out as soon as possible and decides whether or not to close the line.

This technology is a couple of decades old, why isn't it used?

 

[yorkie]

Sorry but how hard would it be to have a spreadsheet for every facing point in the country on a central server, to store a simple but effective log of inspections to points.

Very. And a spreadsheet is totally inappropriate; I guess you didn't study ICT. Do you mean database? It's not as simple as you suggest. I'm not sure it's wise to give contractors write access to NR's records as you suggest! Contractors may use their own spreadsheet, but then that's not the same thing as NR's central records is it?

Of course, this all highlights how it should all be done 'in house.

 

[CallySleeper]

Let's just wait until Wednesday 21st's NMT data and video recording is downloaded and revealed to see what state the track was in close to the event. It has been reported that a laser check from that date (could well have been the NMT) found no problem.

 

[Coxster]

The driver, Ian Black, has issued a brief statement: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/6399609.stm

 

[Nick W]

Very. And a spreadsheet is totally inappropriate; I guess you didn't study ICT. Do you mean database?

No I don't wish there to be a large database which could go offline. One that limits the data that can be inputted so a track gang wishing to add a little report spends 30 mins trying to figure out a way to add comments and giving up. ICT admins daily trying to edit the data storage leading to slow server response time as the whole thing is altered.

It's not as simple as you suggest.

Let a primary school bang a spreadsheet together then and NR staff refine it as they see fit.

I'm not sure it's wise to give contractors write access to NR's records as you suggest!

I think it is wise that any concerns can be written in. I think it would also be wise for the whole public to have read access.

Contractors may use their own spreadsheet, but then that's not the same thing as NR's central records is it?

Which is very poor considereing that there aren't several points, one for NR, one for Balfour Beatty, one for Jarvis...

Of course, this all highlights how it should all be done 'in house.

Couldn't say it any better.

 

[Respite]

Interesting about the class 90 being hired in,one of my mates is a west coast driver with Virgin.With the introduction of pendo's he was made to cross off 86/87 & 90's off his traction card so cant drive them anymore.

As for what the driver could do after derailing whilst waiting for the train to stop,well theres not a lot really apart from power off/emergency brake on(single power brake controller anyway),hit the red button on the NRN for 3 seconds to send out the emergency broadcast & maybe even do a announcment for passengers to brace themselves if You had time.

Still laughing about what Kris said about drivers doors being fast escape only to have to wait for the slow passenger door to open.........so true! Mind You 158 doors normally only open inwards so that's even worse,153 doors open at random anyway.

 

[voyagerdude220]

Does anyone have any info about the extra freight trains over the S&C for my mate in the area?

 

[metrocammel]

Interesting about the class 90 being hired in,one of my mates is a west coast driver with Virgin.With the introduction of pendo's he was made to cross off 86/87 & 90's off his traction card so cant drive them anymore.

Yes, but as with the the Pendolino sanding mods, a small number of London men (afaik, only the ones who were "old school" staff, who had previous knowledge with lhcs) were "refreshed" with the stock & loco. I assume the same group of people will be used for this loco comeback, and ofc, the drivers will need to be refreshed with Skodas, rather than 'sevens'. It seems to be confirmed that the lhcs will be on the same diag. as the 87 turn, (R90, G21, B05), so the same London crew would make sense (though the "silly o' clock" start for the staff of the R90 from Euston to Coventry (which then works back ecs to Rugby to for the 1R90) seems ridiculous to me - this was once Wolves crew apparently -which makes much more sense!)

hit the red button on the NRN for 3 seconds to send out the emergency broadcast & maybe even do a announcment for passengers to brace themselves if You had time.

Where does the emergency broadcast from the NRN actually go to? and what is the procedure if a broadcast is made?

 

[87015]

a small number of London men (afaik, only the ones who were "old school" staff, who had previous knowledge with lhcs) were "refreshed" with the stock & loco. I assume the same group of people will be used for this loco comeback,

It was some of the lower link (west mids being the 'branch line' is lower link) London men which were refreshed for the 87s as everyone needed re-training. I had heard this caused some discontent among the 'old school'!

 

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

As a layman, it seems amazing that there were so few injuries and only one fatality - though I don't fully understand the debate about crashworthiness of different types of train in different types of crash, I was hugely impressed that any kind of train could protect its occupants so well in a high-speed accident, and I will continue to use trains without any more trepidation than I had before this sad event.

I was flying one of the RAF Sea King helicopters which ferried the casualties to hospital, and when we were first scrambled to the job, we feared that we'd be in for a long night. In fact, the Co-ordination Centre which controls military rescue helicopters sent four to the scene from three different bases - they don't like sending more aircraft than they have to, as all their assets end up in the same place (not a good thing if another incident crops up elsewhere). Don't get me wrong - it was a terrible event, and our sincere sympathies are with the injured and the family of the dead lady - but four aircraft or more are usually only seen at a Lockerbie or a Piper Alpha, and clearly our controllers, like us, were expecting it to be even worse than it was. It was a big relief, therefore, to find that we were all stood down after only a couple of hours - only 18 people in total were moved by air.

 

[westcoaster]

i went past wembley a few times yesterday and the lhcs had gone and just the 87 sitting by it self, so the stock and dvt must of moved of to somewhere, iirc the second coach behind the loco is defective and locked( sticky taped up) out of use, problem with lighting and neutral sections,

also welcome TorqueOfTheDevil to the forum, its good to know ppl like yourself are around to help us in these situations, and being a member of train crew/ passenger my thanks go out to you for helping these ppl.

 

[westcoaster]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6390000/newsid_6398500/6398563.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm

a reconstruction of what happened kind off click on the bottom vid POINTS CAUSED RAILCRASH

 

[class 313]

iirc the second coach behind the loco is defective and locked( sticky taped up) out of use, problem with lighting and neutral sections,

Yup!

We where on 87002 coming from Brum - Eus and every time we went under a neutral section the lights went off leaving the coach in darkness... Nick W knew what was happening but I didn't lol.

18-Feb-07 Inspection due Points inspected Visually No faults found

Actually,

It was due on the 18th but it didn't take place...