WCML landslip Carstairs

[Colin_McLeod]

Thanks @SHMD .

 

I suspect it's a conspiracy; all these posts about alternative service and trades unions etc are just to prevent us learning anything about the landslip 😁

[woodenhead]

It would seem the local infrastructure team have employed Gollum, a fan of small dark places to look at the culverts in that area.

 

He seems quite concerned with the next stream along:

 

And I guess he found a fire in the culprit culvert as he has reported an injury to his forehead

[Legend]

35 minutes ago, SHMD said:

I'm pretty sure I have located the breach!

 

 

Many things tie in...

The angle of the culvert, the fencing around the culvert, the bush, the OHLE Mast positions, the Signal, the AWS magnet, even the gate under the bush!

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Carstairs+Junction,+Lanark/@55.6544982,-3.6341962,516m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x4888096ddfae3319:0xc3aaf833ce228049!8m2!3d55.686899!4d-3.663482?hl=en

 

 

Speculation alert!

(I'm guessing the culvert flows from right to left because the field on the right looks to be at a slightly higher elevation to the field on the left.)

 

 

From the location, it looks like the "natural rain catchment area", (the field on the right), could not "drain" through the railway embankment into the culvert in the field left of the tracks.

Either due to a blocked/damaged culvert and/or too much rain at once.

The railway embankment makes a pretty good Dam here. If water is forced to accumulate on the Right of it, then once the water level "over flows" then Dam walls are known to fail

 

 

Kev. 

 

 

Interesting Kev .  So was it that the culvert was blocked  or was it excessive rain ? As I said in previous post West Central Scotland not exactly short of rainfall . 

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, Legend said:

 

Interesting Kev .  So was it that the culvert was blocked  or was it excessive rain ? As I said in previous post West Central Scotland not exactly short of rainfall . 

But neither any excessive rainfall or major snowfall melt - it's not even coming from high ground.

[SHMD]

...or leaves falling off later in the year?

I just don't know from here.

 

Looking at the location, I am now not sure which way "Brow Burn" flows, but it doesn't matter. If water is trapped and then over flows - damage will occur.

(...unless a "spill way" is installed.)

 

(I also don't think water came along the tracks and flowed down each side of the banking here.)

 

 

Kev.

[Mark Saunders]

6 minutes ago, SHMD said:

...or leaves falling off later in the year?

I just don't know from here.

 

Looking at the location, I am now not sure which way "Brow Burn" flows, but it doesn't matter. If water is trapped and then over flows - damage will occur.

(...unless a "spill way" is installed.)

 

(I also don't think water came along the tracks and flowed down each side of the banking here.)

 

 

Kev.

Another piece of Victorian engineering showing it’s age !

[woodenhead]

20 minutes ago, SHMD said:

...or leaves falling off later in the year?

I just don't know from here.

 

Looking at the location, I am now not sure which way "Brow Burn" flows, but it doesn't matter. If water is trapped and then over flows - damage will occur.

(...unless a "spill way" is installed.)

 

(I also don't think water came along the tracks and flowed down each side of the banking here.)

 

 

Kev.

I would say left to right - both streams join together and flow into the River Clyde, it ceases to even register on a map just a few hundred yards further along.

[woodenhead]

Looking at the image again, is that another failure in the lower corner?  Is it perhaps a drainage failure under the track that has led to slippage on the embankment in heavy rain?

 

 

[Wheatley]

Quite apart from problems of the  railway's own making, it wouldn't be the first time a  washout on a railway line has been caused by a  short term fix to a localised drainage problem by a landowner further upstream. 

 

I dealt with part of the insurance fallout from one a few years ago where an entire mole drain system in a lineside field had been surreptitiously plumbed into the crest drain at the top of a cutting. Worked great until it really rained.  

[rab]

5 hours ago, CN6 said:

Come on guys, let’s get back to the issue of the thread. Where was the slip and how are the repairs going.

 

(To close the drift, it’s not all about the money!)

Good try :)

[CN6]

Thanks Kev for your thoughts on the location, I had trawled google maps and suspected that was the place. If it’s a culvert failure then there are questions to be asked on the maintenance. Do the bright yellow all singing inspection trains check the embankments etc, or was that the length man’s job when he walked his patch? 

[woodenhead]

5 hours ago, CN6 said:

Come on guys, let’s get back to the issue of the thread. Where was the slip and how are the repairs going.

 

(To close the drift, it’s not all about the money!)

 

5 minutes ago, rab said:

Good try :)

It's a bit difficult when Network Rail are not issuing updates, they've said it will be fixed in a couple of days so I guess thats all we need to know and there is probably other more pressing PR/news from NR during a series of strikes this week.

 

And in that vacuum of information, discussions about the wider state of the railway occur. 😀

[Wheatley]

59 minutes ago, CN6 said:

 Do the bright yellow all singing inspection trains check the embankments etc, or was that the length man’s job when he walked his patch? 

Track patrols would report obvious defects but structures were always subject to a separate inspection regime with their own engineers. 

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

Track patrols would report obvious defects but structures were always subject to a separate inspection regime with their own engineers. 

This may relate in some way to the thread drift.  Modernising of maintenance techniques involves many things that remove people from the lineside, because they either have to do it during a line closure (potentially disruptive) or during operating hours (which carries increased risk). 

 

Some of the new techniques involve things like visual inspection using drones and the "Instrumented Railway", the data from which is analysed remotely and possibly/probably by employees of external specialist contractors, NOT NR employees.  There won't be less maintenance, but there will be less physical inspection and so over time, fewer inspectors needed.

 

For anyone who worries that only in-person inspections are guaranteed to find faults, should look up the accident reports for Potters Bar and Grayrigg. 

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The RMT has actually made a big point of recruiting cleaners - because the cowboy outsourcing companies favoured by the rail industry like  Churchil, Mitie, ISS, etc etc frequently only offer 'zero hours' contracts on the minimum wage with no sick pay, no holiday entitlement, no pension provision etc.

 

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/cleaners-strike-for-fair-pay-and-decent-conditions/

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/merseyrail-cleaners-strike-and-protest-tomorrow-in-fight-for/

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/cleaners-strike-for-fair-pay-and-decent-conditions/

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/west-coast-train-cleaners-striking-again/

But as far as a dispute with NR or an operating company is concerned those people are totally irrelevant because they are not employed by any of those parts of the railway industry or involved in any negotuation reharding wages etc.  And note my previous comments - the idea of putting cleaning work, various, out to private contract goes back well into BR days and long before privatisation of the railway itself was even considered.  

 

Contracted out PerWay maintenance in some areas goes back, to my direct knowledge, to the 1960s.   Contracted out track renewal - again to my direct knowledge - goes back at least to the 1970s.  Numerous tasks formally undertaken within the railway industry either ceased over the years or have been hived off - not always necessarily with any financial return for the Govt of the day.

 

BTW zero hours conditions are not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on what people want for their lives.  i worked on a zero hours contract for some years and at age 65 received from that employer a pension lump sum plus a continuing index linked pension.

[The Stationmaster]

8 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

This may relate in some way to the thread drift.  Modernising of maintenance techniques involves many things that remove people from the lineside, because they either have to do it during a line closure (potentially disruptive) or during operating hours (which carries increased risk). 

 

Some of the new techniques involve things like visual inspection using drones and the "Instrumented Railway", the data from which is analysed remotely and possibly/probably by employees of external specialist contractors, NOT NR employees.  There won't be less maintenance, but there will be less physical inspection and so over time, fewer inspectors needed.

 

For anyone who worries that only in-person inspections are guaranteed to find faults, should look up the accident reports for Potters Bar and Grayrigg. 

Very much the case with 'track walking' where the frequency has been reduced considerably over the years and what was once daily cab n in some places now be fortnightly or possibly even less frequent.  In addition the abolition of local gangs - which goes way back into BR days - means that people undertaking the remaining walks will not necessarily have grown up in the area they are walking and are therefore less familiar with its foibles and oddities.

[phil-b259]

34 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

BTW zero hours conditions are not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on what people want for their lives.  i worked on a zero hours contract for some years and at age 65 received from that employer a pension lump sum plus a continuing index linked pension.

 

With respect , I very much doubt you were paid £10 an hour, nor did you have to turn up at an ungodly hour of the morning or stay late into the night cleaning up all sorts of nastiness (piss, blood, sick, overflowing toilets etc) on your zero hours contract.

 

So while I accept zero hours contracts can have a place if used correctly, the brutal truth is the various 'outsourcing specialists' who love them so much have in fact used them as an excuse for a race to the bottom with respect to the staff conditions at the sharp end.

 

As such anyone who thinks they are worth praising needs a significant reality check as to what REALLY is going on with them (as opposed to what company directors, free marketers and the Government say) because quite frankly they are being used in totally inappropriate situations.

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

 

Some of the new techniques involve things like visual inspection using drones and the "Instrumented Railway", the data from which is analysed remotely and possibly/probably by employees of external specialist contractors, NOT NR employees.  There won't be less maintenance, but there will be less physical inspection and so over time, fewer inspectors needed.

 

 

I would love to see an automated drone that can open a lineside location case and observe rodent droppings / chewed wires and take action BEFORE it becomes a full on earth fault or a 'stop the job' while multiple bare cables are repaired.

 

As things stand location case maintenance visits are being slashed or being done away with where your much vaulted 'busbar monitoring' is installed.

 

Similarly signals - a tech visiting on a regular basis can spot things like vegetation or, foundation / structure problems which no drone can until the thing has failed and fallen over as at Newbury a few years ago.

 

THAT is the point. Automation and condition monitoring can only tell you so much. Why do you think that in the absence of video to category prove the lit aspect we still need to test the tail cables running up to a signal head even if the relays are monitored or its fed from a SSI module?

 

(Answer for those who don't knowe is we cannot rule out there being a cable defect on the 'last leg' so need to prove all is as it should be).

 

Finally, would people advocating this ‘minimal maintenance’ regime with respect to eoad policing. After all if we adopt the NR model we can get rid of loads of traffic police as ANPR and CCTV are all just as good at catching bad motorists as the police are….

 

…. except when the vehicle is using cloned plates

…. except when the driver is drunk

…. except when the driver has taken drugs

…. except etc

 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by phil-b259

[Northmoor]

2 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I would love to see an automated drone that can open a lineside location case and observe rodent droppings / chewed wires and take action BEFORE it becomes a full on earth fault or a 'stop the job' while multiple bare cables are repaired.

 

As things stand location case maintenance visits are being slashed or being done away with where your much vaulted 'busbar monitoring' is installed.

 

Similarly signals - a tech visiting on a regular basis can spot things like vegetation or, foundation / structure problems which no drone can until the thing has failed and fallen over as at Newbury a few years ago.

 

THAT is the point. Automation and condition monitoring can only tell you so much. Why do you think that in the absence of video to category prove the lit aspect we still need to test the tail cables running up to a signal head even if the relays are monitored or its fed from a SSI module?

 

(Answer for those who don't knowe is we cannot rule out there being a cable defect on the 'last leg' so need to prove all is as it should be).

We agree then, there are some applications where a sensor suite or remote monitoring cannot (yet) replace a human inspection.  So you continue to use them for those tasks, where they can focus on the 5-10 things rather than the original 20-25 possible details and stand more chance of spotting the faults.

 

Every generation believes their role cannot be replaced (actually, its usually augmented) by technology, but if tech could not replace humans, the railways would still be employing wheel-tappers.

[phil-b259]

On 04/01/2023 at 20:43, Northmoor said:

We agree then, there are some applications where a sensor suite or remote monitoring cannot (yet) replace a human inspection.  So you continue to use them for those tasks, where they can focus on the 5-10 things rather than the original 20-25 possible details and stand more chance of spotting the faults.

 

Every generation believes their role cannot be replaced (actually, its usually augmented) by technology, but if tech could not replace humans, the railways would still be employing wheel-tappers.

But this is NOT being technology driven - it’s being money driven by the Treasury who have told NR to slash staff costs.

 

Things are being rushed through nationwide on hugely varying infrastructure without proper trials to see if there is an adverse affects  - (just like the chaotic ban on working with lookouts which took no account of the maintenance requirements or indeed the ability of a 1980s railway (with lots of auto signals) to actually implement what the supposedly wonder kids wanted to impose) 

Edited January 6, 2023 by phil-b259

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

With respect , I very much doubt you were paid £10 an hour, nor did you have to turn up at an ungodly hour of the morning or stay late into the night cleaning up all sorts of nastiness (piss, blood, sick, overflowing toilets etc) on your zero hours contract.

 

So while I accept zero hours contracts can have a place if used correctly, the brutal truth is the various 'outsourcing specialists' who love them so much have in fact used them as an excuse for a race to the bottom with respect to the staff conditions at the sharp end.

 

As such anyone who thinks they are worth praising needs a significant reality check as to what REALLY is going on with them (as opposed to what company directors, free marketers and the Government say) because quite frankly they are being used in totally inappropriate situations.

Come on Phil  you know that is far from the truth.  Thousands of people work on highly paid zero hours contracts and thousands more don't and there are good employers and bad employers and that applies all over the place.  John lewis p Partnership - you know the one where 'our staff are partners and share in the business' - have been employing zero hours contractors for years, mainly in distribution depots and at their farm where they grow some of the of their produce sold in their Waitrose shops.  and their zero hours folk aren't on miniscule wages and mst of them, I understand, like it because it gives them flexibility to do more than one job.  Whatever you care to call it that sort of thing isn't going to go away but I agree wholeheartedly that it does need decent conditions which is why Under got the kicking it deserved

 

And 10 quid an hour is £400 for a 40 hour wrek although not everyone works that many hours I know - and some work a lot more. 

 

But this has little to do with negotiations between the RMT or ASLEF and NR and the train operators because using contractors to carry our certain areas of work on the railway goes back to BR days - it is nothing new.  And if somebody decided to totally renationalise the railways it wouldn't change.

 

BTW when I started on the railway I was paid £9 a week and by outside standard that was pretty poor money but I decided right from the start that I din't want to sit at the bottom of the pile just as many had done before, and many have done after, me.

[Andymsa]

15 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

No, it's not the TOCs that want to close ticket offices, in most cases they oppose it.  It's the civil servants at the DfT (one in particular) who are pushing for it led by ministers who have no real understanding of the industry (if they do, Sir Humphrey has them moved on at the next reshuffle).  Likewise, the push towards extended DOO is supported by the TOCs but not as a means of getting rid of guards but to allow them to concentrate on the real issue of revenue collection.  As I've said before, it is extremely inefficient if a guard who is checking/selling tickets has to keep interrupting these duties to work the doors at each station particularly on busy suburban services.

 

Network Rail have made it quite clear, they do NOT propose any redundancies - in many areas, including key ones like signallers - they are actually struggling to fill posts so why would they want to make staff redundant?  The same applies to the TOCs.  Sadly, it is the unions who are misleading their members.

 

As for pay, whilst some grades are on fairly modest rates, we have many drivers and signallers who are on the upper levels of five-figure annual incomes and many are now into six-figures - that's right, £100,000 plus  I know because I have the contacts within the industry who tell me this - often 'cos they are the recipients.  Yes we have a cost of living crisis but if it's leaving those on that sort of incomes struggling then they need to reconsider their personal budgets.  How many of us on here are on those sort of incomes?

although I’m sure some drivers earn this sort of money, that is with overtime. Not all drivers of the different TOCS are on this sort of money. 

[jjb1970]

As Stationmaster says the real issue is whether an employer is good or bad at how it treats employees, and I'd extend it to include whether they are responsible or not in how they manage their affairs (safety, environmental stewardship, ethics etc). Whether the organization is private or public, an owner/self-operator or providing a service to others is not really the point, it's whether they treat you well and are a well run company. I think one of the problems with railways is the awkward structure and blending of DfT control with private service delivery which seems to combine the worst of all worlds. It's easy to say government should keep it's nose out and leave it to managers but if HMG is picking up the tab and writing large cheques out to fund the railways then the government has every right to take an interest in things. Unfortunately DfT who are the government department with responsibility for dealing with railways don't have a very good reputation and don't seem to be held in high regard by anybody and their efforts to interfere might charitably be described as having a mixed record. And what real incentive do the companies contracted to deliver services have to try and improve anything in the current regime? They're not empowered to make any important decisions or make real change, they're basically being paid to do what the government demands of them. That's not necessarily a bad thing and in any outsourcing the one paying the bills calls the shots but if a government department is using those companies as body armour and hiding behind them to avoid accountability the results are never going to be positive. And on the union side the RMT are carrying so much baggage that they've made a rod for their own back, whether the opinion is justified or not many people view them as a bunch of militant trouble makers (and I suspect few without an interest in railways know what ASLEF is). I'm familiar with the RMT and their colleagues at the ITF and to be honest get on well with some of them (in fact I consider some of the ITF people good friends) but they seem to behave very differently on the maritime side (the balance of power is very different in that sector).

[Andymsa]

7 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

As Stationmaster says the real issue is whether an employer is good or bad at how it treats employees, and I'd extend it to include whether they are responsible or not in how they manage their affairs (safety, environmental stewardship, ethics etc). Whether the organization is private or public, an owner/self-operator or providing a service to others is not really the point, it's whether they treat you well and are a well run company. I think one of the problems with railways is the awkward structure and blending of DfT control with private service delivery which seems to combine the worst of all worlds. It's easy to say government should keep it's nose out and leave it to managers but if HMG is picking up the tab and writing large cheques out to fund the railways then the government has every right to take an interest in things. Unfortunately DfT who are the government department with responsibility for dealing with railways don't have a very good reputation and don't seem to be held in high regard by anybody and their efforts to interfere might charitably be described as having a mixed record. And what real incentive do the companies contracted to deliver services have to try and improve anything in the current regime? They're not empowered to make any important decisions or make real change, they're basically being paid to do what the government demands of them. That's not necessarily a bad thing and in any outsourcing the one paying the bills calls the shots but if a government department is using those companies as body armour and hiding behind them to avoid accountability the results are never going to be positive. And on the union side the RMT are carrying so much baggage that they've made a rod for their own back, whether the opinion is justified or not many people view them as a bunch of militant trouble makers (and I suspect few without an interest in railways know what ASLEF is). I'm familiar with the RMT and their colleagues at the ITF and to be honest get on well with some of them (in fact I consider some of the ITF people good friends) but they seem to behave very differently on the maritime side (the balance of power is very different in that sector).

i think the real issue is being overlooked, from the beginning of covid our economy has been wrecked on many fronts. This has impacted in so many way on different industries, let’s look at the railways before covid regardless of the view of privatisation things ran fairly smoothly, ok there were hiccups. But we went into lockdown railway revenue dropped and it was either the government take over or no trains. It was inevitable that it would occur  that working from home would become more attractive and revenue would not fully recover. Now we come to the cost of living crises there are many groups of workers in various sectors wanting pay rises because of the crises, deal with greedy energy companies, fuel companies ect by stopping the excessive increases, then the % pay demand would be lower. In other words this is the governments fault from the very beginning. And do remember during lockdown transport workers were front line staff who still kept trains running, yes I know there are other more important workers like the NHS but look at that mess and who’s in charge the government. Nurses going on strike, even junior doctors are disgruntled, so this is not just about railway workers who main stream media love to bash.

[Wheatley]

1 hour ago, Andymsa said:

 Nurses going on strike, even junior doctors are disgruntled, so this is not just about railway workers who main stream media love to bash.

Never mind nurses, doctors and ambulance staff, even the TSSA is on strike ! (well, some of it ...) 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Wheatley