Freight train on fire in Wales

[Steadfast]

4 hours ago, Ken.W said:

Where a loco's being hauled as in the examples above, as the locos aren't coupled for multiple working, the driver of the hauling loco will not have any fire alarm warning for the hauled loco(s).

Therefore locos being hauled need to be either manned by a driver, or shut down and hauled dead.

When a loco's dead, the BIS* needs to be put to off/isolate to preserve battery power, so a portable tail lamp's required.

 

* Battery Isolating Switch

Totally correct. As an example, class 66s on a sandite set do use the built in tail lights as they are through wired through wagons in multiple, so both are powering under the control of the driver. 

Just to add a little "fun snippet".

Class 66s with original style lights (so the EWS build, early Freightliner and GBRf) the tail lights stay on when the BIS is out and will over time drain the batteries preventing the loco from starting.

Those with LED markers (such as the pair on the crane move in question) when the BIS is switched out the tail lights go out. 

Some may have been modified, but as built that's what they're like.

 

Jo

[rob D2]

So the crane is from Colas, being pulled by FL.

Does NR not have the big cranes it inherited anymore ? And in a short term move like this, who decides who gets the haulage or is it already covered under contract ?

[jeff mcghie]

The old 75T breakdown cranes have been retired. The various Kirow cranes are owned by various infrastructure renewal contractors and NR has one they bought themselves but the operate largely in a pool. The NR and Volker cranes are in Scotland just now waiting permission to deal with the derailment at Carmont. That leaves the Colas crane and the 2 Balfour cranes, it may be the Colas one was the only one available due to prior book work although the Balfour cranes come with some additional issues.

 

All the main FOC's have contracts with NR for engineering train haulage so potentially who had spare drivers/locos to resource given the short timescales but the crew and the loco can be from different FOC's and on large engineering possessions where a train arrives and departs days later often are.

[Gilbert]

Crane is scheduled to head some of the way home today. No guarantee it will or be on time.

 

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/53189/2020-09-07/detailed

 

Chris

[Damo666]

5 hours ago, Gilbert said:

Crane is scheduled to head some of the way home today. No guarantee it will or be on time.

 

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/53189/2020-09-07/detailed

 

Chris

Thanks for that, got to grab a few pics with about 30 seconds to spare.

 

What has surprised my is how the Colas container colours are so close to the new Freightliner livery.

 

66418 & 66419

 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Damo666
reorder pics

[Damo666]

Not a great pic of the crane, all went past too quickly.

[Gilbert]

I managed to get out as well..

Album here:

 

[Fat Controller]

The person who thought of using those FLA container flats should get a prize for lateral thinking.

[Gilbert]

Just now, Fat Controller said:

The person who thought of using those FLA container flats should get a prize for lateral thinking.

I think that is why the return working is to Southampton MCT and yes - I assume they gave the most headroom for the damaged tanks

[Gilbert]

https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2020/09/llangennech-train-fire-heart-of-wales-line-will-not-fully-reopen-until-2021.html

[roythebus]

Quote of the week from the above article (remember it's in Wales):  

 

Bill Kelly, Network Rail’s Wales route director, said: “A huge amount of progress has already been made as our engineers work tirelessly to repair the damage and open the Heart of Wales line as quickly as possible.

“They have had a mountain to climb in the last few weeks, but we now know the timescales for the reopening of the line, which we know is so vital to the local communities it serves.

[petethemole]

It appears to have been caused by brakes jamming on the third wagon causing a bad wheel flat.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/derailment-and-fire-involving-a-tanker-train-at-llangennech-updated-21092020

[roythebus]

An interesting report and one reason which I would not have expected. It just goes to show, wait for the report!

[corneliuslundie]

On the Beeb today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55893267

Jonathan

[corneliuslundie]

Re-opening:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56297143

Jonathan

[Bucoops]

On 22/09/2020 at 15:05, roythebus said:

An interesting report and one reason which I would not have expected. It just goes to show, wait for the report!

 

And what a report it is. 91 pages.

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1045465/R012022_220113_Llangennech.pdf

 

Everyone from the ORR downwards has work to do to up their game it would seem.

[roythebus1]

I took the time to read through. alot of the report on Friday when it arrived in my email inbox.

 

The basic cause was a missing washer, something very simple. That caused a nut to work loose; the nut may not have been tightened correctly as it was found the torque wrench in the maintenance depot hadn't been calibrated. 

 

This loose nut, undiscovered for quite a while cause 2 parts of a brake unit to work loose, allowing an O ring to work loose and eventually allow air to enter a brake cylinder. This cause one axle to jam on, which then caused an extra flange on that wheel set. When it came to a set of points, that wheel rode over the running rail, ran on for a bit then derailed. That caused one tanker to overturn, taking 2 other with it despite the low speed. When the brake pipe parted the train brake applied, but the rest of the train concertina'd into the derailed waggons, splitting a tank  open. The fuel then spilt and caught fire.

 

Most of the report looks into the paper trail of events leading up to nobody noticing the missing washer. there's some interesting pics of the forensic investigation of the brake unit. But the report also mentions that part of this was due to the dreaded "B" word. Parts of EU railway law that should have been passed into UK law weren't. There was also a lack of communication between the Belgian wagon operators and the UK authorities. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by roythebus1

[Bucoops]

1 hour ago, roythebus1 said:

I took the time to read through. alot of the report on Friday when it arrived in my email inbox.

 

The basic cause was a missing washer, something very simple. That caused a nut to work loose; the nut may not have been tightened correctly as it was found the torque wrench in the maintenance depot hadn't been calibrated. 

 

This loose nut, undiscovered for quite a while cause 2 parts of a brake unit to work loose, allowing an O ring to work loose and eventually allow air to enter a brake cylinder. This cause one axle to jam on, which then caused an extra flange on that wheel set. When it came to a set of points, that wheel rode over the running rail, ran on for a bit then derailed. That caused one tanker to overturn, taking 2 other with it despite the low speed. When the brake pipe parted the train brake applied, but the rest of the train concertina'd into the derailed waggons, splitting a tank  open. The fuel then spilt and caught fire.

 

Most of the report looks into the paper trail of events leading up to nobody noticing the missing washer. there's some interesting pics of the forensic investigation of the brake unit. But the report also mentions that part of this was due to the dreaded "B" word. Parts of EU railway law that should have been passed into UK law weren't. There was also a lack of communication between the Belgian wagon operators and the UK authorities. 

 

 

They also decided the nut should be replaced whenever it was removed, but yes, it boiled down to missing washers. Other notes were that the original design used 4 mounting bolts, with more recent ones two.

[KingEdwardII]

I think that this tale is an argument in favour of automated remote monitoring of wheels & brakes. I saw an electronic system demonstrated at Birmingham University that was claimed could spot and report on 9 different faults on a bogie while in use, simply by listening to the acoustic signal from the bogie.

[Titan]

From the report it would seem that the existing equipment was perfectly capable of detecting the problem and raising the alarm, but was set for hot axle boxes only - just needed a software update for dragging brakes to trigger an alarm also.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Titan