John_Hughes Posted May 8, 2018 Share Posted May 8, 2018 It was on the opening day, rather than during trials, and it was that the led me to suggest that HMRI might have spotted the flaw, which was that stones trapped in the rack, could cause derailment with evil consequences. They fitted gripper rails, to trap the trains to the track, after that. Whether the proximate cause of the derailment was a stone trapped in the rack as HMRI claimed (I don't think there was any physical evidence for it - certainly no photographic evidence seems to exist) or inadequate support at sleeper-ends (which certainly was the case) causing a simple derailment and the subsequent dive over the cliff-face, was fiercely argued about at the time, with the Abt engineers contending that the HMRI 'cure' wouid cause more problems than it would solve. But in fairness it must be said that nothing untoward seems to have arisen on the line since the grippers were installed, though other Abt systems round the world do seem to work perfectly safely without any such modification. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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