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Low Speed Derailment Sheffield 11/11

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Killingworth

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At 15.20 today final welding and signalling in progress and tidying up. Head shunt at Platform 1 has been cut out.

WP_20201116_15_17_54_Pro.jpg

WP_20201116_15_22_06_Pro.jpg
 
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Sunset route

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Hi Sunset Route - thanks for reply - I sort of wondered that having seen the berths around KX recently.
I looked at 40355's list but many of them are more than chars and there was no mention of the most widely one used round here T3

Rule book section T3 “Possession of a running line for engineering work”
 

DelW

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If you look at that again you will see they are not Dozers!!!! Caterpillar can manufacture a lot more than that (including complete main line locomotives nowadays). These are specialist manufactured pieces of kit for the rail industry, handled by operators who know their stuff and get everything up and out of the way readily. They are tracked lifting jacks designed for just this task. Damage to the track - notice the machine tracks spread the load out wide, and are made of substantial rubber blocks.
They're actually side booms, principally used for pipeline construction. I've never seen one in Britain, where we generally prefer 360° backhoes for such work.
Cat® sidebooms have been the standard of the pipeline industry for decades. A worldwide network of Cat dealers, in tune with the special high production needs of pipeliners, supports these durable and dependable sidebooms. Cat sidebooms are purpose-built to meet the unique demands of pipeline customers.
 

The Planner

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The choice may have been between losing a little-used stabling siding and delaying the re-opening.
They can probably cover themselves with that until it gets to the point that its clear it isn't going to go back in and it has to be removed formally. It shown in the sectional appendix.
 

bspahh

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Network Rail Air Ops have just posted https://twitter.com/nrairops/status/1328678458013200385

What a difference the mighty orange army makes...…... Taken on the 11th and yesterday at Sheffield.
@helisean

@networkrail
EnBpcJcW8AIyIX2

EnBpcJbXUAIK-f4
 

Nicholas Lewis

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Recovery teams did well given it was a RAIB site for a period of time, having to remove the contents of a number of the tanks through to rebuilding the trashed infrastructure.

Looking forward to the RAIB report on this one although bound to be well into 2021 given the workload they must have on this year already.
 

stuartl

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A post on the local Sheffield forum atributed to Breedon cement says that the derailment was due to an electrical failure causing the points to move as the train was passing over them
 

GB

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Rumour mill put the cause of the Llanelli tanker derailment as a handbrake left on, turned out it was a wagon defect so I’d wait for the report if I were you.
 

stuartl

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True, but the reason I posted this was because it looks to have come from the company whose cement was being transported, so more than just a rumour as they may well have been seeking assurance from network rail that this wouldn't happen again.
 

Killingworth

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From Sheffield Forum, who's contributor quotes an unknown source, presumably not official from the language in the final sentence!

"From Breedon(?) ,formerly Blue Circle Cement works at Hope

It was a points failure. Basically, the electrical connection tripped on the points where the rails cross over. This caused one of the carriages to go one way and the carriage behind it to go the other. The problem then is that all the other carriages crash into the back. So, it was a bit of a nightmare to say the least. In stations and depots, the max speed is actually only 5mph. So, it would never have been a bad derailment - however, in Sheffield station, they have an agreement that the max speed is 15mph due to the amount of through trains that they get. The problem with clearing it up is that each tanker was filled with cement. So, network rail had to actually empty each tanker of the cement before attempting to move it due to the weight - hence it taking nearly five days to repair and clear. It was just one of them things that happens with electrics every now and then.'
 

GB

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I wouldn’t trust a source that says the max speed is 5mph but there’s “an agreement they can do 15mph” of referring to wagons as carriages.
 

alxndr

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Absolute nonsense and certainly not "just one of them things that happens with electrics every now and then"!
 

Cynfal

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Absolute nonsense and certainly not "just one of them things that happens with electrics every now and then"!
Indeed, you would expect a safety critical system to be designed so that this wouldn’t happen.
It will be an interesting report to read.
 

mcmad

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Nothing remotely to do with electricity or the points moving under the train. The RAIB report, if they bother to produce one, will be utterly mundane and standard.
 

Nicholas Lewis

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A post on the local Sheffield forum atributed to Breedon cement says that the derailment was due to an electrical failure causing the points to move as the train was passing over them
Doubt it if true that would have required destructive testing of the entire interlocking and that isn't conducive with the time it took to restore the infrastructure
 

Class 170101

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Doubt it if true that would have required destructive testing of the entire interlocking and that isn't conducive with the time it took to restore the infrastructure

Also won't the RAIB have released a statement to the effect that they are investigating the incident?
 

edwin_m

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Any suggestion of a wrong side failure of the interlocking would have set alarm bells ringing far and wide - probably more so than the Waterloo accident a couple of years back since that was temporary alterations and nothing similar was going on in Sheffield as far as I know. The absence of that sort of concern suggests an alternative explanation.
 

2HAP

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Nothing remotely to do with electricity or the points moving under the train. The RAIB report, if they bother to produce one, will be utterly mundane and standard.

Also won't the RAIB have released a statement to the effect that they are investigating the incident?

RAIB have tweeted today that they are investigating. Initial indications are that the track spread under the train.
 

Swimbar

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RAIB have tweeted today that they are investigating. Initial indications are that the track spread under the train.


RAIB’s preliminary examination found that a series of rail fastenings, intended to maintain the correct distance between the rails, had broken. Initial evidence suggests that some of these were already broken before the derailment. Consequently, as the freight train passed, the rails moved apart and some of the wagons’ wheels dropped into the space between the rails.
 

Killingworth

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Precisely, but for the record I didn"t say that. I was quoting the full misinformation from the Sheffield Forum, posted more briefly in post 253.
As well as almost certainly being a load of rubbish, that particular sentence is a crime against the English language
 

ainsworth74

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The RAIB have now published their report into this accident. You can find the full report here and a summary is below:

Summary​

At 02:44 hrs on Wednesday 11 November 2020, 16 wagons of a freight train that was conveying cement powder from Hope, Derbyshire, to Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, derailed at the north end of Sheffield station. A number of wagons were damaged and there was significant damage to the track, resulting in a partial closure of the station. No one was injured.

The train was coasting through the station at a constant speed of around 12 mph (19 km/h) when the leading right-hand wheel of the twelfth wagon dropped into the space between the two running rails, because the rails were too far apart: a problem known as gauge widening. The train stopped when the signaller observed a number of signalling equipment failures indicated on a display screen, and alerted the driver to a problem.

The track gauge had widened because a number of track screws, that secured the rails and baseplates to the wooden bearers, had broken, allowing the rails to spread apart under the loads from passing trains. The track screws had failed several weeks, or perhaps months, before the derailment, but the failures had not been identified by Network Rail’s maintenance inspection activities.

Although this was a location with a potentially high risk of derailment, it had not been recognised as such because Network Rail’s guidance for identifying such risk had not been applied. Additional mitigation had therefore not been considered.

Recommendations​

RAIB has made four recommendations to Network Rail concerning the implementation of processes for identifying high derailment risk locations, the implementation of safety-critical changes to its processes, standards governing fitment of check rails, and track geometry data formats.

RAIB has also identified three learning points for track maintenance staff alerting them to the need for effective management of track gauge in tightly curved track, the limitations of geometry alerts provided by static measuring equipment, and the importance of monitoring track geometry trends for the identification of track deterioration.
 
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