A derailment occurred today at about mid-day, on the east coast main line north of London. The 12.10 train to Leeds derailed only minutes into its journey, as it was travelling at over 100mph. Four people were killed, and several injured, but all concerned were amazed that many more were not killed or seriously injured. Cause is not known at present, as full investigations are underway. It was not the head of the train which derailed, but a few coaches back, the train parted, several vehicles went onto their sides, and some hit the overhead catenary masts. Nothing is being ruled out, and it has been revealed that threats have been received against trains or track in this area. Although there is no evidence of terrorism or vandalism at present. Investigations will go on overnight, and well into tomorrow, and this extremely busy line is not expected to re-open for some time. ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.ac-models.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery
Alan, It was reported in the American media most of the day that this was possibly terrorist related. Charlie ------------------ Ship It On The FRISCO! | IAMOKA.com
Terrorism now ruled out ... http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,241832-412,00.shtml Charlie ------------------ Ship It On The FRISCO! | IAMOKA.com
In most cases when it is the rear of the train that derails points to a couple of possible causes. One would be track misalignment or axle problems, it will be interesting to see what the actual cause is. ------------------ Regards Paul Cassar-# Member number 50 SPAD Investigator #1 ICQ 61198217 http://users.bigpond.net.au/railroad2000
Broken rail was found overnight, and Railtrack have imposed a blanket speed limit throughout the network on similar stretches of track. It is not yet known if the rail was broken by the accident, or was the cause. ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.ac-models.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery
Is it pure coincidence that a lot of accidents happen on the only privatised railway of Europe? Paul the 2nd ------------------ Paul Van Herwegen Rappannahock Terminal Railway
'Bout 35 years ago I was a news reporter at a small radio station in New Hampshire and the Amtrak Montrealer fell on the ground and a couple of cars tipped over, no deaths but a few broken bones. It seems that the head end hit a washout and the roadbed just colapsed under the weight of the engine. Good thing they were under 10mph slow orders. In those days the tracks and ties were under "deferred maintance" and were in terrible shape anyway. The track was laid down in 1947 and the wreck occured in the early '70s. Interesting detail, I was on the scene about 3 hours after the wreck, the crane had not arrived but crews were already building a shoofly track. I don't remember what the engine was but as I saw it upside down, it looked just like an HO model. ------------------ When in doubt, empty your magazine. Member #33
It appears almost certain that the derailment was due to the track. The track condition was "not good" in the words of Railtrack. This stretch of track was noted as needing major work several months ago, but so far had only been patched up, and had a regrind of parts of it.The rail was due to be replaced next month! If it was known that the track was below par, why allow trains to run over it round a curve at 115mph? As I said before, this is an extremely busy piece of railway, with high speed trains passing every 30 minutes or so. The east coast main line is supposed to be our 'premier' line! The chairman of Railtrack has offered his resignation, but most do not want him to go, as he has begun to turn the company around in the 3 years he has been there. ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.ac-models.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery
The Railtrack chairman's resignation has been rejected by the board, as everyone seems to think he is the best man for the job. It has been announced that it was known that the rail was cracked, but nothing was done to replace it, or even to put a slow order on the line! Broken rails are far more common than I imagined. About 950 per year!! 3% of trackage is described as "very poor", and 7% as "poor". This should not be permitted on a passenger network, with many of the trains travelling at high speeds. At least this incident has highlighted the state of the tracks, so things may now improve. ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.ac-models.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery
Another train derailment, not serious this time. A local train. At the start of a "maintenance blitz" nearly 1,900 cracks in rails have been found on tracks around the country! The west coast main line was closed completely for three days, without warning, between Carlisle and Glasgow, stranding sleeping car passengers. They were not amused! Safety has suddenly become the watchword, so many track occupations by the engineers will cause disruptions for some time. At least the system should be safer in the future. ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.ac-models.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery
An update on the repercussions of the Hatfield derailment. After agreeing that the accident was its fault, because of bad track, Railtrack suddenly started imposing 20mph speed limits all over the network. It seems amazing that Permanant Way Technical staff suddenly find somewhere in the region of 150-200 "Track Faults" in the space of 24 hours, all of which were on curves where the track speed was over 50 mph. The rails get replaced, but do the number of speed restrictions get less. HA!!!. No they have INCREASED. Now just about any facing points have had 20mph speed restrictions imposed until they have been checked out fully. Now we have even more problesm with the flooding, especially down here on the South Coast. The main line between London and Brighton has been blocked in two locations, just north of Brighton where the force of water has washed away the ballast completely and about 8 miles north of Brighton in the village of Hassocks, where an embankment has "disappered". Yesterday, an attept was made to fill it in with used ballast. They dropped 2000 tons down the hole, and that has been the last anybody has seen of it. They reckon it could take up to 2 weeks to repair both blockages. And if we get any more floods around Lewes, then Connex South Central and Thameslink(for whom I work) will be right in the you-know-what! Because the route via Lewes is the diversion route. See what happens when you close down every branch line. I dread going into work somedays, because the first thing that you see is a wall covered with emergency speed restrictions. When I left work this evening, there were 65 on our wall. It make you wonder just what we were travelling on every day. It would appear that a large number of people were being moved on an infrastructure that could have quite easily killed a large number of them. I think that Railtrack has a hell of a lot of very rigerous questions to answer. If you would like any more information about this problem, I will be glad to try and answer them. ------------------ Ron Carlisle Rio Grande Main Line Thru the Rockies
The East Coast mail line through Hatfield reopened yesterday, but not for the whole route to Scotland, because of flooding. But will close again for the weekend, for more trackwork. As Ron says, many speed restrictions mean that nothing like a normal service can be regained for quite some time. ------------------ Alan The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale! www.alancurtismodels.com Andersley Western Railroad Alan's American Gallery
