Train derailment

[Caledonian1]

2 hours ago, Scorge said:

Yep, feeling this. Had similar occasional-small-fitba-banter on the odd Saturday in the same vein with him, including one trip to Elgin where I headed up on the early morning wagon (parkrun/social calls) and he apologised for the lack of coffee and hoped the Mo wouldn't spoil my day out. For once, they didn't! 

A complete gent, RIP.

yes, I recognised him straight away and agree that he was a gent and always cheerful.

Prior to Lockdown I typically took that train from Stonie to Glasgow every two weeks  - went to office in Glasgow on a Weds morning back Thurs night.  I would imagine that there would have been possibly 200 on the train most days (just a guess but surely not far off.  The Covid-19 situation in general with the additional Aberdeen lockdown resulting in there only being 12 on the train saved this being a monumental disaster.  Cannot comprehend how the carriages ended up as they did  - neither could a train crash expert on the Nine earlier - he thought the carriages would have slipped down the slope rather than end up in a mangled mess on top of each other

[RiG]

The P & J reporting that an off duty crew member was able to break free from the wreckage and walk down the track to the signal box at Carmont to raise the alarm around 09:40.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeenshire/2407690/emergency-responders-hailed-as-absolutely-outstanding-heroes-for-derailment-incident-efforts/

Scotrail are warning that the line will be closed for some time currently estimated to be 2nd September.

[Have some faith in Magic]

16 hours ago, throbber said:

Exactly - that had thousands of retweets as well after she was getting publicly shamed for it. The guy I saw share it had the caption “everything wrong with this country in one tweet” as well which is totally unfair given the information she would have had on her at 12 o clock yesterday. 

Yep. Truly some self awareness lacking there. 'Everything wrong with this country' applies to the attention seekers and pile on culture that idiot is part of.  

The lady asked a perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances. 

[ajwffc]

The P & J reporting that an off duty crew member was able to break free from the wreckage and walk down the track to the signal box at Carmont to raise the alarm around 09:40.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeenshire/2407690/emergency-responders-hailed-as-absolutely-outstanding-heroes-for-derailment-incident-efforts/

Scotrail are warning that the line will be closed for some time currently estimated to be 2nd September.

They arrived at the box at about the same time a member of the public called 999 as they could see the smoke.

It might even be longer to get the line open as they have to wait till the RAIB are done before they can remove the train somehow (RAIB might want it in as little pieces as possible). Then the RAIB might want to look at the site without the train before Network Rail repair the track, bankings and any damage to the bridge. On top of the other work they have the now due to other landslips it will take a while.

[GordonS]

14 hours ago, Caledonian1 said:

yes, I recognised him straight away and agree that he was a gent and always cheerful.

Prior to Lockdown I typically took that train from Stonie to Glasgow every two weeks  - went to office in Glasgow on a Weds morning back Thurs night.  I would imagine that there would have been possibly 200 on the train most days (just a guess but surely not far off.  The Covid-19 situation in general with the additional Aberdeen lockdown resulting in there only being 12 on the train saved this being a monumental disaster.  Cannot comprehend how the carriages ended up as they did  - neither could a train crash expert on the Nine earlier - he thought the carriages would have slipped down the slope rather than end up in a mangled mess on top of each other

Is anybody suggesting this might be a Polmont-style crash, which ended up in a similar jumble of carriages? It looks to me from the photos like it hit a small landslip about 100m south of the crash site, knocked the front powercar off and then the rear powercar drove the other carriages off. Some of the mess might have been caused when it hit the bridge parapet.

Amazing work by the emergency services to build a road into the site. That doesn't happen on the day, that's the product of good contingency planning.

 

[welshbairn]

30 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Amazing work by the emergency services to build a road into the site. That doesn't happen on the day, that's the product of good contingency planning.

Heard somewhere that they had some ongoing work planned or being carried out nearby, so it might not have been as difficult as it could have been. 

[RiG]

Update from the RAIB:

 

[Ginaro]

The RAIB's initial summary confirms that it was returning back to Stonehaven and that it derailed "at around 09:40": https://www.gov.uk/government/news/passenger-train-derailment-near-carmont-aberdeenshire

From the drone footage you can see the landslip before the bridge, and the damage to the parapet: https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/video-new-images-shows-scale-of-devastation-stonehaven-train-crash/

[ajwffc]

6 hours ago, Ginaro said:

The RAIB's initial summary confirms that it was returning back to Stonehaven and that it derailed "at around 09:40": https://www.gov.uk/government/news/passenger-train-derailment-near-carmont-aberdeenshire

From the drone footage you can see the landslip before the bridge, and the damage to the parapet: https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/video-new-images-shows-scale-of-devastation-stonehaven-train-crash/

RAIB reports are normally very good but we won't see the full report for about 12 months. There will be a couple of updates issued and safety digests  if they find anything that needs immediate action 

[JamesP_81]

Reading that report sheds a lot more light on the lead up to it and it looks like this has been a devastatingly misfortunate example of wrong place wrong time.

The box at Carmont was alerted to landslip on the southbound line by a northbound train, this could only have been the 0639 off Montrose. 2 trains had already passed that way in the previous hour so that landslip must have only just occurred and the northbound driver has been on the ball and alerted the box about this, absolutely the right thing to do and in his mind he'll be thinking that he's just saved one of his colleagues from coming into serious danger. He has then passed over the site of the impending accident which must clearly have been absolutely fine. The 2 trains will have passed each other between Carmont and Stonehaven and the drivers will have waved at each other, probably gesturing as well about danger down the line.

1T08 will have passed the crash site in the southbound direction again there couldn't have been any sign of landslip as the driver would have reported it as he passed it on the other line. In the time its then taken to get to Carmont, arrange the move with the signaller, cross over and head the couple of miles back up the track the landslip has come down and again probably at the worst possible point, just before a bend onto a viaduct.

If it had been a half a mile further back it may have been a big accident but nowhere near as bad with the viaduct out of the equation. Also if the northbound driver never spotted the landslip further down the line could that have been a far lesser accident than the one that occurred? I really feel for the Northbound driver as he will have been feeling great about himself that he has looked out for his colleague, as we all do in bad weather conditions, only to find out later what has happened and especially as he will have been the last train over the crash site as well. Tough one to get over.

[RiG]

13 hours ago, ajwffc said:

RAIB reports are normally very good but we won't see the full report for about 12 months. There will be a couple of updates issued and safety digests  if they find anything that needs immediate action 

Schapps has asked for an interim report by 1st September so hopefully we get more information then before the full report next year.

[Hedgecutter]

With this being P&B and 7 pages in, I would have thought that we would had a self-proclaimed expert* wading in with accusations of a cover-up by now.

_{*who would turn out to be nothing other than an avid player of Train Simulator.} 

[ajwffc]

10 hours ago, RiG said:

Schapps has asked for an interim report by 1st September so hopefully we get more information then before the full report next year.

it will be something like this https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/547c903840f0b60244000197/IR12007_070226_Grayrigg.pdf with a full report like this https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/547c9038e5274a428d000181/IR22007_071003_Grayrigg.pdf 

8 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

With this being P&B and 7 pages in, I would have thought that we would had a self-proclaimed expert* wading in with accusations of a cover-up by now.

_{*who would turn out to be nothing other than an avid player of Train Simulator.} 

with the RAIB being quick of the mark with a statement has made it harder for them. But as soon as the interim report comes out they will be straight out with there pish.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

20 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

With this being P&B and 7 pages in, I would have thought that we would had a self-proclaimed expert* wading in with accusations of a cover-up by now.

_{*who would turn out to be nothing other than an avid player of Train Simulator.} 

 Not a single ONS graph yet either which is disappointing.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Melanius Mullarkey

[Old Diamond]

Is anybody suggesting this might be a Polmont-style crash, which ended up in a similar jumble of carriages? It looks to me from the photos like it hit a small landslip about 100m south of the crash site, knocked the front powercar off and then the rear powercar drove the other carriages off. Some of the mess might have been caused when it hit the bridge parapet.
Amazing work by the emergency services to build a road into the site. That doesn't happen on the day, that's the product of good contingency planning.
 

Front power car drives the train, rear power car provides ancillary power for air conditioning, lighting etc, so would not have pushed the wrecked coaches under power, that said it has a fair mass so plenty of momentum

[Shipa]

23 minutes ago, Old Diamond said:

On 14/08/2020 at 13:01, GordonS said:

Is anybody suggesting this might be a Polmont-style crash, which ended up in a similar jumble of carriages? It looks to me from the photos like it hit a small landslip about 100m south of the crash site, knocked the front powercar off and then the rear powercar drove the other carriages off. Some of the mess might have been caused when it hit the bridge parapet.
Amazing work by the emergency services to build a road into the site. That doesn't happen on the day, that's the product of good contingency planning.
 

Front power car drives the train, rear power car provides ancillary power for air conditioning, lighting etc, so would not have pushed the wrecked coaches under power, that said it has a fair mass so plenty of momentum

Both power cars provide traction power, so if the driver didn't have a chance to shut off, the rear would still have been powering until the control wires were broken.

[GordonS]

 

2 hours ago, Old Diamond said:

On 14/08/2020 at 13:01, GordonS said:

Is anybody suggesting this might be a Polmont-style crash, which ended up in a similar jumble of carriages? It looks to me from the photos like it hit a small landslip about 100m south of the crash site, knocked the front powercar off and then the rear powercar drove the other carriages off. Some of the mess might have been caused when it hit the bridge parapet.
Amazing work by the emergency services to build a road into the site. That doesn't happen on the day, that's the product of good contingency planning.
 

Front power car drives the train, rear power car provides ancillary power for air conditioning, lighting etc, so would not have pushed the wrecked coaches under power, that said it has a fair mass so plenty of momentum

 

1 hour ago, Shipa said:

Both power cars provide traction power, so if the driver didn't have a chance to shut off, the rear would still have been powering until the control wires were broken.

In this case it was a southbound train heading back up the northbound line, in which case the 'front' powercar was at the back. But according to the initial RAIB summary there was a powercar at either end. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/passenger-train-derailment-near-carmont-aberdeenshire 

[ajwffc]

THe HST has a powercar at each end of the coaches(4 or 5 on ScotRail trains LNER was 9 when they run them up here)  both are normally running supplying traction power and power to the coaches.  

[GordonS]

 

18 minutes ago, ajwffc said:

THe HST has a powercar at each end of the coaches(4 or 5 on ScotRail trains LNER was 9 when they run them up here)  both are normally running supplying traction power and power to the coaches.  

Do you happen to know if the rear one could keep pushing after the front derailed?

I know nothing about this stuff but I'm a nerd who once read the Polmont crash report, so like every eejit who's watched an hour of something like archery at the Olympics I think I'm some sort of expert.

[ajwffc]

35 minutes ago, GordonS said:

 

Do you happen to know if the rear one could keep pushing after the front derailed?

I know nothing about this stuff but I'm a nerd who once read the Polmont crash report, so like every eejit who's watched an hour of something like archery at the Olympics I think I'm some sort of expert.

It would keep pushing for a couple of seconds (noticable if you were in the last coach in an LNER/GWR HST when they ran the longer sets and mentioned in a past RAIB report ) after the driver shut off power/multiworking cables separated.