ECML Morpeth viaduct parapet collapse.

[ess1uk]

Similar to Vauxhall a couple of years ago?

[Reorte]

13 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

You can imagine the kerfuffle if any of THAT parapet fell onto those expensive looking motors !

It's the Stockport area, so I can only assume that where the cars are is Midland Garage because of the viaduct (it was the Midland's line originally).

[Wickham Green too]

Must admit I don't associate the M.R. with Stockport ...... but this is Hazel Grove !

[The Stationmaster]

7 hours ago, Reorte said:

Is there any particular reason why a well-built, well-maintained stone structure shouldn't last indefinitely (barring major damage such as bits being washed away)?

No reason at all but look at the amount of muck in the sub formation and if there were any drains I\d be surprised if they actually worked.  Once you start getting retained wet inside a structure, especially with uncontrolled vegetation as is common on many NR masonry structures, ypu are not looking at a rosy pictures any more.  in. time something not wanted is likely to happen.

 

I'm sure that NR will put it right as they seem to be very good at dealing with major structural emergencies.  It's just a pity that their basic maintenance of masonry structures is not as good as their emergency response.  The brudge below is on the GWML near Reading and has had this stuff growing out of it for several years -

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

I predict a "sh!t has hit the fan" style kneejerk reaction of such structures being inspected and dealt with.

 

Mike.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Enterprisingwestern

[Wickham Green too]

They'll probably fill them all in with concrete !

[Oldddudders]

Is NR headed up by engineers? ISTR Tim Shoveller is thereabouts, and he was involved w traincrew at Silverlink, I think, obviously not engineering. Since NR stands or falls by the quality of its infrastructure maintenance, seriously experienced railway engineers should be the top team, and  making the demonstrable case for wholesale change. How long since Stonehaven? Ill-completed works signed off without scrutiny and people died. Some impressively slow learning going on here. 

[PerthBox]

20 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Is NR headed up by engineers? ISTR Tim Shoveller is thereabouts, and he was involved w traincrew at Silverlink, I think, obviously not engineering. 

Tim Shoveller left NR after destroying staff morale and setting back industrial relations by years during the 2022/23 pay negotiations. An arrogant and unpleasant character in my view.

[Reorte]

Various people like to grumble about "our old, crumbling Victorian infrastructure" but I've never been convinced that there's anything actually wrong with it, and with the maintenance it's been getting we'd just have new, crumbling modern infrastructure if it was more recent.

 

I also don't think that this is particularly unique to the railways. Or only since recent financial problems.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Reorte

[Michael Hodgson]

57 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Various people like to grumble about "our old, crumbling Victorian infrastructure" but I've never been convinced that there's anything actually wrong with it, and with the maintenance it's been getting we'd just have new, crumbling modern infrastructure if it was more recent.

 

I also don't think that this is particularly unique to the railways. Or only since recent financial problems.

You mean like concrete rooves on schools? 

Our classrooms were in prefabs when I were a lad.  Are portacabins progress?

[Halvarras]

9 hours ago, Reorte said:

I pass this every day - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.3747235,-2.1114228,3a,75y,234.65h,97.05t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1siMBR3XDNv9S0dvgPT0Ty1w!2e0!5s20230501T000000!7i16384!8i8192?ucbcb=1&entry=ttu

 

Go back to the earliest Streetview picture and there's considerably less vegetation. That line carries a reasonable amount of both passenger and freight traffic (albeit not at much of a speed). I'm sure there are similar examples in their hundreds up and down the country.

 

8 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

You can imagine the kerfuffle if any of THAT parapet fell onto those expensive looking motors !

 

This is exactly the kind of sight and potential event which worries me. Down here in Cornwall we have quite a few viaducts (you may be aware....!) and I can recall watching the diesel-hydraulics crossing the growth-free structures at Truro (two) and St Austell. Over the past 30 years I've been alarmed at the amount of vegetation which has been allowed to get itself established in the stonework, as these viaducts are three of many with properties below their arches. I can't help thinking that one day the news will report stonework crashing through somebody's roof, and some of us out here will know it was only a matter of time......

[ess1uk]

22 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Is NR headed up by engineers? 

Doesn’t seem to be 

[Michael Hodgson]

3 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

Doesn’t seem to be 

That's why Railtrack collapsed.  I believe it would be correct to say that none of their main board directors was an engineer.  A Board of Directors does need a good mixture of skills, and whilst there's nothing wrong with hiring an accountant as Finance Director, the Chief Executive believed in contracting out the engineering aspects. 

 

Hatfield should never have happened, It's one thing to sub-contract construction of station buildings etc to specialists, but you'll come to grief very easily if you don't have people in charge who understand the risks inherent in your core business.

[Wheatley]

On 12/10/2023 at 20:08, Michael Hodgson said:

That's why Railtrack collapsed.  I believe it would be correct to say that none of their main board directors was an engineer.  

Edit 1 - Network Rail's Safety and Engineering Director is a Chartered Mechaical Engineer, two of the board non-exec directors are FICE. 

 

Edit 2 - my apologies, I misread 'Railtrack' as 'Network Rail'. Yes you are correct, one of the criticisms laid at Railtrack after Hatfield was that their business was effectively civil engineering, and not a civil engineer between them. 

Edited October 14, 2023 by Wheatley

[The Stationmaster]

On 11/10/2023 at 21:12, Oldddudders said:

Is NR headed up by engineers? ISTR Tim Shoveller is thereabouts, and he was involved w traincrew at Silverlink, I think, obviously not engineering. Since NR stands or falls by the quality of its infrastructure maintenance, seriously experienced railway engineers should be the top team, and  making the demonstrable case for wholesale change. How long since Stonehaven? Ill-completed works signed off without scrutiny and people died. Some impressively slow learning going on here. 

He was Gard at an SR depot in the London Area  - most likely on the Central Division.  He went from there to being a Platform Supervisor at Waterloo Internation thence to the Silverlink job.  I'll say no more aopart from tahfact that he made his reputation by slashib ng certain costs and moving on quickly before the downside of his various cuts started to show.  I have also heard that he is 'not llked' by union negotiators (for reasons I won't go into but they might be being fairly represented of course)

 

A chap I now was one of Railtrack's top civil engineering managers and after the gauge corner cracking problems he duly presented hs budget to a certain Mr Corbett.  Asked why it was so much he explained why, including a major reference to gauge corner cracking, but Corbett told him (and another civil enguneer who had also presented a large budget for majotr attention to things like earthworks)  to go away and slash it because expenditure like that would reduce dividends.  Both of those engineers resigned the next day.

 

I don't thin NR is anything like that bad and they have certainly given a lot of maintenance and preventative attention to earthworks on various parts of the former WR but I agree that civil engineering in NR needs to make its voice heard

[phil-b259]

On 11/10/2023 at 12:57, Oldddudders said:

In which case NR still deserves everything it gets. You tell HMG that you will shortly be publishing a public consultation document of permanent line closures, in order to safely maintain the rest. Or would HMG prefer to wait for the next Clapham or Potters Bar, both the result of inadequate inspection of finished works, as indeed may have been a number of other tragedies, whereupon relevant correspondence between HMG and NR will be published?

 

You rather miss the point.

 

NR is not some independent body it is effectively there to act as the governments fall guy. If NR says or publishes anything HM Government does not like then said Government will simply ensure that the top people in NR are removed and replaced with more 'compliant' ones.

 

This has been abundantly clear to those on the front line where the whole fiasco around 'Modernising maintenance' and the ban on red zone working have all been rushed in to please those in Government (which includes the ORR by the way) without the pre-requisites needed for them to be rolled out successfully being in place.

 

 

[Oldddudders]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

You rather miss the point.

 

NR is not some independent body it is effectively there to act as the governments fall guy. If NR says or publishes anything HM Government does not like then said Government will simply ensure that the top people in NR are removed and replaced with more 'compliant' ones.

 

This has been abundantly clear to those on the front line where the whole fiasco around 'Modernising maintenance' and the ban on red zone working have all been rushed in to please those in Government (which includes the ORR by the way) without the pre-requisites needed for them to be rolled out successfully being in place.

 

 

No Phil, I do not miss the point at all. Railways are safety-led or people die. As an engineer you know that. If NR's board is prepared to acquiesce in the wishes of HM Treasury, putting costs before safety, they will reap the wild wind. 

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

No Phil, I do not miss the point at all. Railways are safety-led or people die. As an engineer you know that. If NR's board is prepared to acquiesce in the wishes of HM Treasury, putting costs before safety, they will reap the wild wind. 

Not necessarily - as with the politicians themselves, the top directors of organisations (be they in the public or private sector) bank on not being around for very long before moving on to ‘fresh challenges’

 

As such whether something is necessarily ‘safe’ is not really the question - it’s more the case of will it be ‘safe for the 1-10 years I plan on being in the job’ and screw what happens after that.

 

 

[chris p bacon]

Just passed Plessey on the 06.34 off Berwick upon Tweed. We were crossed over to the the down at Morpeth and then back onto the up just south of the viaduct. The TSR is something like 50 mph. 
there is quite a large compound with temporary roadway on the down side with some substantial machinery on site. Knowing the hire cost and haulage of this kit I’d guess the repair will equate to well over 50 years of its maintenance budget. 

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

Short of being on site to see first hand it looks like the parapet is a concrete structure added ontop of the stone origional structure and it not tied side to side,i take it the other side has the same but its stayed in place,and its spread off to the side. To be honest the stone structure has stood the test of time but the newer work to add the parapet is breaking the donkeys back without the side to side support.Looks a poorly thought out idea to support line is failing and they have caught it in time. Where is Stephenson and Brunel when we need them.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Presumably, due to "costs", once the work on the damaged side is completed, nobody will have enough oil in their lamp to do the other side, which won't be far behind it condition wise, whilst all the equipment and manpower is on site?

 

Mike.

[Southernman46]

On 12/10/2023 at 20:08, Michael Hodgson said:

That's why Railtrack collapsed.  I believe it would be correct to say that none of their main board directors was an engineer. 

One was but he was also first and foremost a self-serving crook (first hand experience from earlier times) so a waste of space there too

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

The worry is the linkbetween the old to teach the young has been broken and in all walks of life the system is faiing as qualification is put before skill and ability,remember scotsman after it 2 million plus NRM rebuild and Dick Hardy pointed out the frame was cracked.Britain as a country is on a sticky wicket as career politics bites all walks of life deeper.The old track gangs would have spotted this long before now,but i guess in the past it would have been tied side to side.

[chris p bacon]

Passed back over last night at 20.00 heading North, works were ongoing under flood lights, couldn't really tell what they were doing.

[Wheatley]

Edit - didn't need saying. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Wheatley