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Bridge bashing

chriswright03
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Joseph_Pestell

Joseph_Pestell

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Because of their height car carrier drivers are given a specific route which they have to keep too. So he either decided to take a short cut or took the wrong turning. There has been instances however where the instructions were in error and on one occasion were a police officer directed a driver under a low bridge.

 

We have a major car storage facility near here at Henstridge Airfield.

 

The transporter drivers are very unpopular locally for the speeds they attain along the A30. One local road campaigner (his house backs onto  the A30) insisted that the transporters should be accessing the A303 by the more direct road through Templecombe. It took a long time to persuade him that this would not be possible as there is a low bridge under the SW main line there.

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JZ

JZ

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There is a lowish bridge,4.5m, in Junee, NSW. Either side, about 100m before the bridge, the is a gantry with flaps on to warn driver a higher vehicles. They were there last week when I drove through, but street view is from 2010.

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dale159

dale159

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Hatchet Road - Bridge under the Country end of Bristol Parkway station yesterday I suspect a vehicle tied up with the Filton Bank works, fortunately appears to have been empty at the time.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-46077533

 

Dash Cam captures it very well, what it might not show which I just pick up from Google maps is that the first half of the bridge is a Girder bridge but the second half is an Arch.

 

Dale

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stewartingram

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The infamous bridge-bash champion at Ely is more.

As of last Wednesday, the new southern bypass opened, and with immediate effect the LC and bridge were closed to traffic. The bridge closure is only temporary however, as it is being converted for use by cyclists and pedestrians only, whilst the LC is apparently permantly closed.

 

Stewart

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uax6

uax6

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The infamous bridge-bash champion at Ely is more.

As of last Wednesday, the new southern bypass opened, and with immediate effect the LC and bridge were closed to traffic. The bridge closure is only temporary however, as it is being converted for use by cyclists and pedestrians only, whilst the LC is apparently permantly closed.

 

Stewart

 

I thought that low vehicles were still going to be allowed under the railway to reach town? Its going to be a long way round otherwise....

 

Andy G

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F-UnitMad

F-UnitMad

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As an aside, it's remarkable how often I see on layouts a 'large vehicle' being driven away from a bridge it couldn't possibly have fitted under, with no obvious place for it to have turned round!

Trucks and trailers get put in all sorts of locations on layouts that they couldn't possibly accomplish in reality!! :rolleyes: ;)

Edit:- some years ago I measured the Hornby bridge that had 13'9" signs on it. It scaled out at 17ft clearance, which meant it didn't need warning signs anyway!! UK bridges are signed from 16'6" and lower.

Edited by F-UnitMad
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Fat Controller

Fat Controller

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As a slight aside to bashed bridges..

A cautionary tale for those who have large cars and use the sort of multi-storey car park that has a spiral ramp. Don't forget that the radius of the ramp will vary between the ascending and descending routes. A neighbour did; he got into the car-park without difficulty, but on his descent, he heard the near-side scrape against the wall. He was driving a Bentley, and repairs cost £8000...

 

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PhilJ W

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On 06/11/2018 at 19:01, phil-b259 said:

And another one.....

 

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/live-woking-traffic-bridge-lorry-15380143?fbclid=IwAR0qUQleSeFMmj0gi9ETSYnB9WqIolrDkgQn9fU-W47d-xSeb0zOQ2L3BFs

 

1 hour ago, duncan said:

 

That lorry also looks to be very unevenly loaded, with the weight suspended behind the axles.

It is loaded completely wrong. As Duncan said the heavier digger should be loaded first with the arm to the rear.

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F-UnitMad

F-UnitMad

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1 hour ago, petethemole said:

Yet another strike at a "notorious" location this week  https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18028590.great-bridge-lane-romsey-blocked-lorry-crash/

I note the quote in the article -

Quote

According to John, the lorry drivers should be prosecuted and they and should be held accountable.

Seems there's still a common misconception that truck drivers just swan around doing this sort of thing with impunity.

THEY DON'T. :shout: :mad:

That driver WILL be prosecuted, WILL be 'held accountable', & most likely lose his job too.

Because that's what happened to me - & it was that very bridge I hit, back in 2003.

I probably posted about it earlier in this thread, but to save the Great Outraged from having to search for it, the gist of the details of my prang were that I was well aware it was a low bridge; I'd been going that way twice a week for 2 years previously, with a 13'9" trailer. It's clearly a 14'3" bridge.

Then one weekend someone else had swapped my trailer, & the next morning in the dark I didn't notice that the otherwise-identical trailer had a height sign on it of 4.5m, rather than 4.2m. The rest is history.... I was prosecuted, fined, had points on my licence, and lost that job. It was several months before I got a regular job again. But from then on, I sure as hell made sure I knew EXACTLY how high each & every trailer I took out was, without fail. 

 

I note a very different attitude/bias here to train drivers - unsurprisingly I suppose on a railway-oriented Forum. On the thread about the recent LNER collision, it took ages for the driver of the offending train to even be mentioned, & no one's calling for him to be strung up. Ok there were no casualties,  but there was service disruption. If it had been an HGV collision, closing a main road - oh, there'd be endless vitriol thrown at the driver then.... :nono:

 

Trouble with the HGV industry is that it's a long hours & low pay job. It costs a fortune to get an HGV licence, and for too long Companies didn't invest in training, which is why there's also a massive shortage of drivers - being filled by lots of inexperienced drivers, often foreign too (so not used to our roads).

"Pay peanuts; get monkeys". It's true - and dangerous. :(

Edited by F-UnitMad
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phil-b259

phil-b259

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17 minutes ago, rab said:

I see from the report the bridge was inspected by National Rail.

Has Network Rail been nationalised on the quiet.  

 

Erm.... Network Rail was officially Nationalised many years ago when the EU made George Osbourne drop the fiction that it was a private company even though all its debt was garunteed by HM Treasuary!

 

Its something that members / supporters of left wing parties usually forget...

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phil-b259

phil-b259

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4 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

I note a very different attitude/bias here to train drivers - unsurprisingly I suppose on a railway-oriented Forum. On the thread about the recent LNER collision, it took ages for the driver of the offending train to even be mentioned, & no one's calling for him to be strung up. Ok there were no casualties,  but there was service disruption. If it had been an HGV collision, closing a main road - oh, there'd be endless vitriol thrown at the driver then.... :nono:

 

Very different circumstances so stop trying to compare them.

 

The correct comparison - if you must make one is where you either (i) misjudge your braking  and hit another vehicle or (ii) there is a defect on your vehicle which develops mid journey and causes a loss of braking ability and thus causes you to hit another vehicle.

 

The only way that I can see where the collision between 2 trains and a HGV  hitting a bridge is remotely similar is if a technical malfunction of the HGV (or its load) caused the height of the vehicle to change after you commenced your journey and thus it ceased to be in compliance with the height restriction displayed in the cab - as its quite possible that the collision in Leeds will be found to have its roots in a braking malfunction .

 

That said, at present we do not know what has gone wrong - that will have to wait for the RAIB report which will give us a comprehensive look at the cause - because I very much doubt its as simple as 'the driver misjudged their braking' sort of thing.

 

By contrast its usually very easy to physically see who is at fault when a lorry hits a bridge given:-

 

The LAW states a HGV must display in its cab the exact height of the load it is carrying at the time and a DRIVER must refuse to take such a vehicle unless it has been provided.

The LAW states it is the DRIVERS responsibility to ensure that this height sign is correct for the tractor unit / load / trailer actually being hauled

The LAW states it is the DRIVERS responsibility to ensure any load they are carrying is properly secured and cannot increase in height (unless some defect develops on route)

 

Basically the only exception where the Driver can legitimately claim it to not be their fault is if the Highways authority / structure owner has not put up the correct signage (as shown in the TSRGD*) for any structure lower than 16ft 6"

 

*https://tsrgd.co.uk/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by phil-b259
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F-UnitMad

F-UnitMad

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7 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Very different circumstances so stop trying to compare them.

 

 

The only way that I can see where the collision between 2 trains and a HGV  hitting a bridge is remotely similar....

Sorry, I didn't intend the comparison to be restricted to such specific circumstances. Yes it's perfectly obvious who is at fault in 99.999% of HGV bridge bashing collisions.

It's a more general attitude that instantly condemns an HGV driver regardless of the actual circumstances of any accident they're involved in.

Seems to me the 'equivalent' Rail scenario to an HGV bridge bash would be taking a train at excess speed through curves or pointwork - most often the driver's fault, with bad consequences. Some recent train wrecks in the USA have been down to excess speed/driver error.

 

Anyway I'm out of the road transport industry now, and rather glad of it, to be honest.

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EddieB

EddieB

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22 minutes ago, Wickham Green said:

Incident in Swansea today ! : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-50759983

Of course the driver (arrested) bears responsibility, but I note that a detour was in place after a temporary road closure.  Was the driver taking the "official" detour and were there no warnings that it involved passing under a low bridge?

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