2005 Buncefield Explosion / Fire: WCML

[MarkWi72]

Most will recall the Buncefield fire and explosion in December 2005. Where there any impacts on the WCML, or was it far enough away from any danger of damage? I imagine there were some delays?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-34919922

On the morning of 11 December 2005, the UK experienced its largest explosion since World War Two. The huge blast at the Buncefield fuel depot in Hemel Hempstead was heard as far away as the Netherlands and shrouded much of south-east England in smoke.

At the time, the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal - co-owned by Total and Texaco - handled more than two million metric tonnes of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel each year and was the fifth largest oil products storage depot in the UK.

 

[yorkie]

Here is the thread:

Buncefield Oil Depot Explosion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4517962.stm Three large explosions have rocked a fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire shooting flames hundreds of feet into the sky. Police say there are casualties and emergency services are at the scene. The first blast happened at 0603 GMT at the...

www.railforums.co.uk

But no mention of disruption to the rail network.

 

[MarkWi72]

I could not recall any issues on WCML from the time, but I thought I may have missed them, or the media wasn’t overly interested in the railway alongside the rest of the incident.

Here is the thread:

Buncefield Oil Depot Explosion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4517962.stm Three large explosions have rocked a fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire shooting flames hundreds of feet into the sky. Police say there are casualties and emergency services are at the scene. The first blast happened at 0603 GMT at the...

www.railforums.co.uk

But no mention of disruption to the rail network.

Thanks Yorkie.

 

[Taunton]

Most will recall the Buncefield fire and explosion in December 2005. Where there any impacts on the WCML, or was it far enough away from any danger of damage? I imagine there were some delays?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-34919922

We heard it at Canary Wharf. Presumably some here did so from further away; allegedly it was heard in The Netherlands.

It's probably about 4 miles away from the WCML, with all the urban area of Hemel Hempstead in between. The Midland Main Line is not much further away in the opposite direction. The key damage seemed to be the industrial estate immediately to the west. The M1 motorway runs up its eastern side and that I don't recall being damaged in any way; it may have been closed for a short while just as a precaution.

 

[John Webb]

.....It's probably about 4 miles away from the WCML, with all the urban area of Hemel Hempstead in between. The Midland Main Line is not much further away in the opposite direction......

Apsley Station was the nearest point on the WCML at about 4.2km (2 and 2/3rds mile). It also lies in the valley of the Rivers Bulbourne and Gade, some 45m lower in height than Buncefield's location, so the local geography probably gave it protection.
The MML's nearest point appears to have been St Albans City station at around 6.8km (Direct distances measured on a 25,000:1 OS map)

The key damage seemed to be the industrial estate immediately to the west. The M1 motorway runs up its eastern side and that I don't recall being damaged in any way; it may have been closed for a short while just as a precaution.

The M10 (now renamed the A414), Junction 8 of the M1 and the M1 itself were seriously affected during the fire when the police closed them down concerned for traffic safety. The M10 and the A414 west of J8 were completely closed for several days; the latter because a lot of fire hose was laid along/across the A414 to supply the firefighters.

A great number of people claim this to have been the 'largest explosion' since WW2 but I think the 1974 Flixborough explosion of a chemical plant was bigger, but took place in a less densely populated area.

 

[Bald Rick]

At the time I lived 5 miles away, and was woken by the shockwave through the earth shaking the house before the sound arrived a second or two later. First thought was that the boiler had blown (we’d had an issue with it the day before, and it was set to come on at 0600) but that checked out ok. Then we heard the fire engines starting out from the nearby fire station, albeit sirens at 0605 Sunday was probably unnecessary. That made me think it was a plane crash, but I knew that air traffic was pretty light at that time on a Sunday (no Luton or Heathrow departures at that time then), so thought it unlikley. I think the news broke on the TV about half an hour later.

I went out to have a gander around 0900, and also to fill up the car (I had a long journey the next day and needed some fuel anyway), the M10 and M1 were shut and I got as far as the A4147 bridge over the M1 before meeting a police cordon.

Our house was right under the plume of smoke, and the sun effectively didn’t rise that day; the temperature also stayed below freezing. My other car had a layer of sparkly frost on it all day, later in the day it was sprinkles with fairly large soot particles - lkke someone had thrown a pack of peppercorns on it.

From memory there was no impact on rail services at all. No doubt helped by it happening at a time when the railway is essentially shut, so no-one could ask for services to be stopped while we worked out what was happening.

 

[Taunton]

Then we heard the fire engines starting out from the nearby fire station, albeit sirens at 0605 Sunday was probably unnecessary. That made me think it was a plane crash

I knew someone who lived in Raynes Park at the time of the huge newspaper train derailment (with demolition of the footbridge) there in 1967 in the middle of the night. All being woken up by it happening, the street all apparently thought "plane crash" as well. Seems a common reaction, despite the vast majority never having experienced such.

 

[John Webb]

Living SE of St Albans, near to the River Colne and the M25 (J22), and on looking out of the window on being woken by the noise, I saw it was rather foggy. I assumed at first it was a crash on the M25 but after getting up and hearing the news realised what it was that had woken me. I saw nothing of the smoke plume until later in the morning when the fog had dispersed.

 

[Beebman]

I was living on the eastern side of Reading about 45 miles away and I was unusually woken up by neighbours' dogs barking. I just looked at my clock and went back to sleep. It was only later when I saw the time of the explosion in news reports that I realised that it happened at the time I heard the barking, so it shows just how sensitive canine ears are!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Living on a road parallel to the MML - (not backing onto the line) - I very much heard the explosion (sort of think there were 2) , my immediate thoughts was a serious issue on the MML (a tanker train perhaps) , so in the best railway traditions I ran down the road to the Sandpit Lane overbridge and observed the railway. Seemed to be no problem and put the radio on and listened in.

I did not have track circuit clips / dets to hand .........or a bardic.

 

[m0ffy]

No idea about any effects on the railways, but it did displace my family from Luton to the midlands.

My father drove tankers for one of Shell’s contractors. He was working on the morning of the explosion, but arrived to work early and was in west London by the time of the fire.

Different companies treated their drivers very differently in the wake of the event. Shell and BP offered some quite generous relocation packages to drivers to move to another depot. Total (partners in the Hertfordshire Oil Storage joint venture with Texaco, who owned the part of the depot where the fire began) instructed their drivers to park on the M10 and await their P45. Total left the UK market shortly afterwards.

Just like today’s substation fire, aviation was impacted by Buncefield as the depot was a key junction in the British Pipeline Agency’s network which supplied fuel directly to Heathrow, and by road to Luton.

 

[midland1]

It woke me up in Wigston Leic.

 

[westcoaster]

I was booking on duty at Bletchley when it happened, we thought a tamper had derailed outside the depot.

We (4 of us) were in a taxi to Euston to work the first Northbound Silverlink services. In the Taxi it was initially said a light aircraft had crashed, causing the massive explosion.
We were diverted off M1 and used A roads to reach Watford and back on the M1 again.

On the Northbound run the thick black smoke was a sight to see.
Only thing I remember causing an issue was, there was suspicion the fuel particles could cause low adhesion in the area. That's all I remember.