Bird Strike

[Darius43]

Train stuck for three hours after a bird strike
 

Makes a change from leaves on the line and the wrong kind of snow.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[Bucoops]

Either incredibly unlucky (obviously a given for the bird!) or there's a weak point on these.

[billbedford]

Obviously the wrong type of bird...

[russ p]

Rubbish plastic modern stock , my mate sat looking at the rear of this with a 57.

This raises another question,  these things aren't equipped for multi working so why does it have a delner coupling.  It also has an air train pipe so why not give them conventional drawgear.  Could be behind a nose like the apt . Had this been the case yesterday it would have been assisted in no time at all.

 

[Wheatley]

My guess (based on what occasionally happens with 15Xs hitting things) is that it's gone underneath and taken some pipework out. It only needs to cause a crack the wrong side of an isolating cock. 

[Boris]

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

My guess (based on what occasionally happens with 15Xs hitting things) is that it's gone underneath and taken some pipework out. It only needs to cause a crack the wrong side of an isolating cock. 

Absolutely, bearing in mind that it's potentially hitting the train at 70mph+ suddenly you get quite a bit of kinetic energy to dispose of.

[John M Upton]

I can tell you from repeated experience that a pigeon bouncing off the front cab of a train doing 75mph makes a hell of a bang.  Not as loud as a pheasant or a buzzard though....

[Flying Pig]

If the trackside was kept clear* and allowed to return to the wildflower meadow it once was, the risk of birdstrike would probably be considerably reduced, particularly in areas where the shooting industry releases thousands of suicidally stupid pheasants at this time of year.  Of course there would be a corresponding rise in the risk of butterfly strikes, but I think the Railway could cope with that.

 

*Ideally by rotational grazing with native breed cattle, but I doubt that would attract much enthusiasm.

 

[big jim]

1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

I can tell you from repeated experience that a pigeon bouncing off the front cab of a train doing 75mph makes a hell of a bang.  Not as loud as a pheasant or a buzzard though....

this is the result of a pigeon flying head on to the train at 100mph (the train, not the pigeon) woke me up that’s for sure! 

 

i had a first a couple of weeks back, hit a peacock at 75mph, that made a bang!

Edited September 24, 2022 by big jim

[Wheatley]

"hit a peacock"

 

Ok, Big Jim wins this one !

Edited September 24, 2022 by Wheatley

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, russ p said:

Rubbish plastic modern stock , my mate sat looking at the rear of this with a 57.

This raises another question,  these things aren't equipped for multi working so why does it have a delner coupling.  It also has an air train pipe so why not give them conventional drawgear.  Could be behind a nose like the apt . Had this been the case yesterday it would have been assisted in no time at all.

 

Trouble is Russ that the Scharffenurg/Delner coupling is more or less de facto standard on an awful lot of modern MU stock - the real problem is the lack of locos/match wagons to allow easy coupling to all those trains.  I used to make some very good money for my then employers - back in the 1990s - hiring out locos and match wagons capable of coupling to such stock because there was literally nobody else at that time that they could turn to to couple a loco to their train.

 

In their early days HEX ran into major problems with uneven tyre wear on their trains so to reduce. the frequency of tyre turning they instead decided the best thing to do was turn all their sets on a regular programme.  I did them a rather nice - for us - deal  (among various services we found we could sell them until they developed operational experience) using one of our 37s and a match truck, with our Drivers, to turn their sets 'round Greenford' at night.

[Wickham Green too]

I dunno ...... ASLEF strike, RMT strike, bird strike - WHAT NEXT ?

[Bucoops]

18 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

I dunno ...... ASLEF strike, RMT strike, bird strike - WHAT NEXT ?

 

Lucky Strike?

[russ p]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Trouble is Russ that the Scharffenurg/Delner coupling is more or less de facto standard on an awful lot of modern MU stock - the real problem is the lack of locos/match wagons to allow easy coupling to all those trains.  I used to make some very good money for my then employers - back in the 1990s - hiring out locos and match wagons capable of coupling to such stock because there was literally nobody else at that time that they could turn to to couple a loco to their train.

 

In their early days HEX ran into major problems with uneven tyre wear on their trains so to reduce. the frequency of tyre turning they instead decided the best thing to do was turn all their sets on a regular programme.  I did them a rather nice - for us - deal  (among various services we found we could sell them until they developed operational experience) using one of our 37s and a match truck, with our Drivers, to turn their sets 'round Greenford' at night.

 

Another big problem Mike is not only is there different couplers but there are the same type of couplers at different heights!  Which idiot allowed that 

[Darius43]

22 hours ago, billbedford said:

Obviously the wrong type of bird...

For many that’s the story of their life…

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[KingEdwardII]

10 hours ago, russ p said:

same type of couplers at different heights!

They have obviously been paying too much attention to the model train industry....

[Michael Hodgson]

11 hours ago, russ p said:

 

Another big problem Mike is not only is there different couplers but there are the same type of couplers at different heights!  Which idiot allowed that 

THis should be in the prototype for everything thread.

[big jim]

11 hours ago, russ p said:

 

Another big problem Mike is not only is there different couplers but there are the same type of couplers at different heights!  Which idiot allowed that 

voyagers and 175s are a prime example, same coupler but they are mounted in opposite orientations (electrical box on the top on a voyager) 

[St Enodoc]

17 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Trouble is Russ that the Scharffenurg/Delner coupling is more or less de facto standard on an awful lot of modern MU stock - the real problem is the lack of locos/match wagons to allow easy coupling to all those trains.  I used to make some very good money for my then employers - back in the 1990s - hiring out locos and match wagons capable of coupling to such stock because there was literally nobody else at that time that they could turn to to couple a loco to their train.

 

In their early days HEX ran into major problems with uneven tyre wear on their trains so to reduce. the frequency of tyre turning they instead decided the best thing to do was turn all their sets on a regular programme.  I did them a rather nice - for us - deal  (among various services we found we could sell them until they developed operational experience) using one of our 37s and a match truck, with our Drivers, to turn their sets 'round Greenford' at night.

Over here, the Scharfenberg type 10 coupler is indeed the de facto standard for MUs. They carry an adaptor that allows the MU to be coupled to a loco or other vehicle fitted with an AAR coupler.

[great central]

1 hour ago, big jim said:

voyagers and 175s are a prime example, same coupler but they are mounted in opposite orientations (electrical box on the top on a voyager) 

 

Even more so the Voyagers and Meridians, very similar trains but totally incompatible both physically and electrically I understand!

[62613]

Doesn't anyone issue standards for stuff like coupling compatibility anymore? Are there still things like (I suppose) DfT  "requirements"?

[frobisher]

As I understand it there's the two "standard" heights for the coupler; Pendalino being at one (Voyagers et al as well?), and the "standard" MU height being the other.  MU connections are only for interworking of compatible types and not required for merely physically coupling two incompatible units together, hence the separate air pipes for emergencies.

[40152]

At least with the pointy front of the units in the pics, the birds bounce over the top. Many years ago now I remember an 86 rolling into Birmingham New St with a buzzard splattered across the front. Caused more than a few squeals of horror from some of the waiting passengers on the packed platform.

 

[sandra]

I was once on a class 87 hauled train when south of Kilsby tunnel there was a sudden brake application. It transpired there had been a bird strike which had smashed the drivers windscreen, fortunately he was unhurt.

 

We then proceeded slowly to Bletchley where a class 31 was attached ahead of the 87. The 31 then struggled to get the train over the hill to Tring, we were hardly moving by the summit but after Tring we trundled along easily to Euston. 

[uax6]

The Tightlocks were always interesting with bird strikes, the 365's down here always seemed to strike the birds with theirs, which of course then required some poor unfortunate to pick the remains out, so that they could couple up...

 

Interestingly the 365 tightlocks could couple with 317's, but you couldn't run them in service coupled up (although at least once the 365 had passengers with a 317 in the lead...), so the incompatablity has been going on for years..

 

Pete Townsend recalls that when he was in charge of Topshed at KX, the buckeyes on the LM Royal Train were noted to be at a different height to the ones on the rear of the A4's, this being discovered at KX just before departure time. After they had tried a couple of times and got the couplers wedged, they just managed to get them apart and sling the emergency coupling on before right away... The driver later discovered that he had a rag over the brake gauge to remind him to do a brake test.... which he had forgotten about....

 

Andy G