Sussex storm

[Hophead]

Don't think this is on the forum anywhere (but it's been on the news, so you may have seen it).

A major storm at 05:30 this morning in the Brighton - Worthing area brought a month's worth of rain in a couple of hours and a lot of lightning.

The latter took out a railway substation at Hove and the former has put platforms 1 & 2 at Worthing out of use - the subway's flooded. The Argus has a gallery, including this picture of the inundated subway. Oooh: here's another.

The platforms will reopen tomorrow morning apparently.

 

[Leylandlad]

Just seen it on the BBC 10.00 news.

Looked major

These things happen though. People (or rather most of them) understand that. The key is how to recover and keep people best informed.

Ie if there's no chance of running trains until 12.00 don't announce the next train should be within the hour.

Straight info is what customers want (whether that's actually want they want to hear...)

 

[Class377/5]

An entire months worth of rail in under two hours will always cause problems. Especially in a country where valve for money drives infrastructure spending.

 

[NSEFAN]

Perhaps there should be better infrastructure to cope with these kinds of incidents in the future, given they're only going to become more common.

 

[talltim]

I can understand places flooding when there is a lot of water, but the roof of the subway shouldn't be leaking like that

 

[broadgage]

Perhaps there should be better infrastructure to cope with these kinds of incidents in the future, given they're only going to become more common.

Agree, whilst we cant afford to upgrade everything overnight, more weather resistance should certainly be a requirement for new projects.
Footbridges rather than subways may be worth considering at new or rebuilt stations.
Signalling equipment and power supplies seem to be becoming more vulnerable rather than less. In years gone by I do not recall fairly normal summer thunderstorms causing disruption on the scale seen recently.

 

[phil beard]

An entire months worth of rail in under two hours will always cause problems. Especially in a country where valve for money drives infrastructure spending.

Couldn't agree more about the "valve", but perhaps it should be used to turn off the rain! Nothing wrong with "value" for money so long as it is not the only reason to restrict expenditure.

 

[Class377/5]

I can understand places flooding when there is a lot of water, but the roof of the subway shouldn't be leaking like that

Roof of the subway? The water at Worthing was run off from the platform as it came down the stairs!

Perhaps there should be better infrastructure to cope with these kinds of incidents in the future, given they're only going to become more common.

Remember the £1bn a year price tag for being ready for the snow? Its a debate we are just starting to develop with the recent SW incident a good example of why we need to prepare but the cost to be ready for every rare event becoming normal is massive.

 

[Southern313]

Teville stream runs under Worthing station as well which probably didn't help matters!

 

[Moonshot]

Perhaps there should be better infrastructure to cope with these kinds of incidents in the future, given they're only going to become more common.

its quite ironic when you look at the entire rail infrastructure in the UK , the one bit that is designed to modern standards seems to stand up to the testing conditions of severe weather......and that is High Speed 1 .

 

[Tio Terry]

its quite ironic when you look at the entire rail infrastructure in the UK , the one bit that is designed to modern standards seems to stand up to the testing conditions of severe weather......and that is High Speed 1 .

Yes, and North Kent is a high incidence area when it comes to lightning.

It's partly to do with the design of the Earthing and Bonding system it uses which is heavily influenced by French HS designs. Each Signalling Equipment Room is designed as a Faraday Cage rather than just having a lightning earth, the metallic cable trays are designed not to have loops which promote circulating currents. The whole line employs a buried earth continuity conductor which all metalwork is connected to. It's quite different to most of the UK's designs.

 

[Moonshot]

Yes, and North Kent is a high incidence area when it comes to lightning.

It's partly to do with the design of the Earthing and Bonding system it uses which is heavily influenced by French HS designs. Each Signalling Equipment Room is designed as a Faraday Cage rather than just having a lightning earth, the metallic cable trays are designed not to have loops which promote circulating currents. The whole line employs a buried earth continuity conductor which all metalwork is connected to. It's quite different to most of the UK's designs.

Brilliant post ....thats something I didnt know at all.....amazing what you can find out when asking the right questions or making some intelligent observations. I suspect that the reason is also has much shallower cuttings is for reasons of landslip prevention in much the same way as the motorway network which is a hell of a lot younget than the classic rail network.

 

[route:oxford]

Roof of the subway? The water at Worthing was run off from the platform as it came down the stairs!

Looking at these two pictures in the Argus - there is a lot of water coming through the ceiling...

http://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/3166153/

http://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/3166117/

 

[Bald Rick]

Yes, and North Kent is a high incidence area when it comes to lightning.

It's partly to do with the design of the Earthing and Bonding system it uses which is heavily influenced by French HS designs. Each Signalling Equipment Room is designed as a Faraday Cage rather than just having a lightning earth, the metallic cable trays are designed not to have loops which promote circulating currents. The whole line employs a buried earth continuity conductor which all metalwork is connected to. It's quite different to most of the UK's designs.

Still doesn't help with a direct hit by lightning, like 2 summers ago, when HS1 effectively shut for several hours.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Brilliant post ....thats something I didnt know at all.....amazing what you can find out when asking the right questions or making some intelligent observations. I suspect that the reason is also has much shallower cuttings is for reasons of landslip prevention in much the same way as the motorway network which is a hell of a lot younget than the classic rail network.

And almost all the embankments on HS1 are made of sand. Water doesn't stick around then!

 

[Tio Terry]

Still doesn't help with a direct hit by lightning, like 2 summers ago, when HS1 effectively shut for several hours.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


And almost all the embankments on HS1 are made of sand. Water doesn't stick around then!

Yes, but there has been quite a lot of lightning in North Kent over the past 2 years that has not affected HS1. It's far more reliable than a lot of other routes.

Actually, the embankments on HS1 are steeper than recommended by the original French Design. Bechtel undertook one of their Value Engineering exercises and concluded that if the embankments were steeper they could buy less land, so they did.

 

[Class377/5]

Looking at these two pictures in the Argus - there is a lot of water coming through the ceiling...

http://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/3166153/

http://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/3166117/

Most of it came down the stairs. I watched it happening.