ECML Morpeth viaduct parapet collapse.

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, locoholic said:

Predictable that yet again Network Rail are blaming climate change for an infrastructure failure. This time, I assume they conclude that the higher concentration of CO2 in the air is enabling the buddleia to grow faster and do more damage. We can therefore look forward to a major programme of vegetation clearance from structures to prevent further such incidents...

It could be that they're talking about water from  heavier downfalls of rain, in conjunction with inadequate drainage.

[melmerby]

Vegetation?

Plenty here on the ex GW viaduct to Moor Street & Snow Hill, Birmingham

 

 

Of interest is the original flatter Brunellian profile of the arch compared to the more traditional one on the widened line behind.

[Ian Hargrave]

You might like to (or not ) observe the national collection of masonary planting currently on view at Crewe station.Such unlooked for wall gardens may soon find their way onto a Gardeners World programme 

[adb968008]

On 21/10/2023 at 17:07, Ian Hargrave said:

You might like to (or not ) observe the national collection of masonary planting currently on view at Crewe station.Such unlooked for wall gardens may soon find their way onto a Gardeners World programme 

Growing a new discovered variety of tomatoes…. Ferro Britannus ?

Edited October 22, 2023 by adb968008

[Enterprisingwestern]

17 hours ago, zr2498 said:

Vegetation clearance which was standard practice in the BR days.

 

But that cost money, and nowadays you can't take money out of the poor shareholders and managements pockets, be reasonable!

 

Mike.

[Michael Hodgson]

19 hours ago, dave75 said:

Very interesting and quite worrying given the amount of infrastructure of a similar age around the country.

 

Question for anyone in the industry, is there value putting 2 crossovers  in nearer the site of the incident to shorten that single line section and how long would that take to plan and install, given signalling, track and catenary changes?

Obviously IKB would have it done in a weekend ;-)

 

I'm not in the industry but it is obvious that there is significant operational value in bi-di signalling.  It allows working not just for this sort of unexpected problem, but along the whole route for routine maintenancework.

 

The distance between crossovers affects line capacity during such degraded working.  But crossovers are £££ to install and also to maintain, and the signalling has to provide for prtotection to ensure there is no conflict with trains in the opposite direction, so there's a trade-off between cost and operational flexibility.

 

Bear in mind also that this service ran forwards throughout - so there was a facing crossover at the start and a trailing one at the other end, and whilst we didn't see the signals because we were facing backwards, the move was fully signalled throughout.  Had the opposite line been the one with the problem, the train would have had to reverse through both crossovers if it were to run wrong line between those two points, incurring considerable time penalty.  So you need to provide both facing and trailing crossovers at the required intervals to get the benefit of full bi-directional flexibility. 

 

Compare this to traditional practice - just about every semaphore signalbox had a trailing crossover available for emergency working.  These were therefore at much shorter intervals, very rarely used, but available for such situations.  For safety there was a bureaucratic system of Wrong-line Order forms and pilotmen, hand-signalmen etc,  You would have to pass the emergency crossover and reverse over it to gain the wrong line, and although you would then regain the right line without needing to reverse again, you would have to stop to surrender forms etc.

[Michael Hodgson]

 

deleted

Edited October 22, 2023 by Michael Hodgson
duplicated posting

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

But that cost money, and nowadays you can't take money out of the poor shareholders and managements pockets, be reasonable!

 

Mike.

But Network Rail is owned by the Government, so we are the shareholders🙂

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

9 minutes ago, melmerby said:

But Network Rail is owned by the Government, so we are the shareholders🙂

Same principle applies, 'we' don't like being taxed.

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

But Network Rail is owned by the Government, so we are the shareholders🙂

 

Isn't most of the actual work done by contractors though, NR is just a letterhead on official documents?

 

Mike.

[dave75]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

I'm not in the industry but it is obvtional value in bi-di signalling.  It allows working not just for this sort of unexpected problem

 

Compare this to traditional practice 

Michael I think you've missed my point, I get bidirectional working and its value.  It would probably justify its own thread on which routes in this country are equipped given we might see this problem occuring again .

 

I'm specifically talking about this unexpected problem, that I imagine will take a considerable amount of time to fix.

[Wheatley]

2 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Isn't most of the actual work done by contractors though, NR is just a letterhead on official documents?

 

Mike.

Done by contractors on a contract specced and paid for by Network Rail.  

 

Your plumber doesn't decide what tiles you want in the loo and pay for the posh ones becauseyou won't. 

[uax6]

1 hour ago, dave75 said:

Michael I think you've missed my point, I get bidirectional working and its value.  It would probably justify its own thread on which routes in this country are equipped given we might see this problem occuring again .

 

I'm specifically talking about this unexpected problem, that I imagine will take a considerable amount of time to fix.

 

I doubt that the cost of a closer crossover and the required works (track circuit/axle counter changes, design costs, etc) would ever be affordable for even work like this. 

Just in case you think I'm being over pessimistic, the cost of changing a signalbox name on a single drawing is approx £10k! And it appears the the budget per chain of railway in the next control period works out at something in the order of £10, yes than is ten pounds.

 

I think a half set of switches (ie one of the pair of moveable rails in a point) that has just been replaced here was something like £250k.

A set of manually controlled barriers (ie barrier controlled by a signalbox) comes in at about £1million.

 

The railway isn't a cheap place to do any work....

 

Andy G

[Enterprisingwestern]

24 minutes ago, uax6 said:

The railway isn't a cheap place to do any work...

 

Including maintaining bridge parapets, which about takes us full circle!

 

Mike.

[The Stationmaster]

On 21/10/2023 at 15:12, zr2498 said:

Vegetation clearance which was standard practice in the BR days.

Oh no it wasn't.   The usual pattern of lineside vegetation clearance was by burning back the banks twice a year.  That ceased for two reasons - mo longer needed ince steanm had finshed ending teh risk of bank fires and secondly the signal engineers didn't like the civil engineers setting fire to their cables  (although they hadn't like their pole routes being set on fire either).

 

Net result was that lineside vegetation increased, deep ballasting for cwr got rid of most cess paths and nature invented something called 'leaf fall' when leaves from trees near to the railway got on the railhead and caused adhesion problems.  Back in the late 1980s I did a bit of work - partly for my own interest but also to draw out the facts - charting leaf fall delays and the onset of them on almost any BR route was directly linked to the date c.20=25 years  previously when lineside bank burning/clearing and vegetation clearance ceased because there was no longer. a risk from steam trains.  20 years on and the trees were becoming sufficiently mature to deposit considerable quantities of leaves on the line.

[zr2498]

3 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Oh no it wasn't.   The usual pattern of lineside vegetation clearance was by burning back the banks twice a year.  That ceased for two reasons - mo longer needed ince steanm had finshed ending teh risk of bank fires and secondly the signal engineers didn't like the civil engineers setting fire to their cables  (although they hadn't like their pole routes being set on fire either).

 

Net result was that lineside vegetation increased, deep ballasting for cwr got rid of most cess paths and nature invented something called 'leaf fall' when leaves from trees near to the railway got on the railhead and caused adhesion problems.  Back in the late 1980s I did a bit of work - partly for my own interest but also to draw out the facts - charting leaf fall delays and the onset of them on almost any BR route was directly linked to the date c.20=25 years  previously when lineside bank burning/clearing and vegetation clearance ceased because there was no longer. a risk from steam trains.  20 years on and the trees were becoming sufficiently mature to deposit considerable quantities of leaves on the line.

I guess it depends on the timing, so to some extent, so oh yes it was. My father was an Area Civil Engineer until his passing in 1978. I remember well the vegetation clearance, and don't forget the widespead use of potent weed killers which of course were subsequently prohibited.

[Stoke West]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Oh no it wasn't.   The usual pattern of lineside vegetation clearance was by burning back the banks twice a year.  That ceased for two reasons - mo longer needed ince steanm had finshed ending teh risk of bank fires and secondly the signal engineers didn't like the civil engineers setting fire to their cables  (although they hadn't like their pole routes being set on fire either).

 

Net result was that lineside vegetation increased, deep ballasting for cwr got rid of most cess paths and nature invented something called 'leaf fall' when leaves from trees near to the railway got on the railhead and caused adhesion problems.  Back in the late 1980s I did a bit of work - partly for my own interest but also to draw out the facts - charting leaf fall delays and the onset of them on almost any BR route was directly linked to the date c.20=25 years  previously when lineside bank burning/clearing and vegetation clearance ceased because there was no longer. a risk from steam trains.  20 years on and the trees were becoming sufficiently mature to deposit considerable quantities of leaves on the line.

Didnt bank burning off stop in the early eighties when stubble burning was stopped . Definateley remember black burnt off banks at that time and there was a photograph in a magazine with a class 50 rounding the curves east of Somerton with the banks on fire

[Southernman46]

I may be a bit out of date by 6-7 years but NR structures are inspected by Contractors (such as Amey Consulting who I worked for for 6 years out of Swindon doing the GW area) on long-term contract basis - a condition report was made for each structure for the perusal of the relevant NR structures Engineer and they would apparently develop an emerging work programme accordingly. Recommendation of vegetation removal was a regular preventative item reported and seldom acted upon by which time it had already got to the stage where many structures were un-examinable due to the presence of such vegetation - by which time it was already established and causing damage. We were EXPRESSLY forbidden from clearing any vegetation ourselves.

Amusingly the number of times we were requested to undertake a bridge structure examination by the NR Structure Maintenance Engineer Dept. and having planned it I'd attend the 13-week Possession meeting at Reading only to find I was planning to examine the bridge in the same possession as it was being demolished for re-build for the GWML electrification. This only further added to my opinion that certain sections of NR couldn't tie their shoelaces properly let alone talk to each other and I was well out of it.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Southernman46

[Oldddudders]

I think the vegetation issue got swept up  - or not - in the CWR programme. Local P Way gangs were dab hands at keeping saplings and the like under control, in the course of their daily patrols etc.  Once CWR obviated the need for knocking-in keys, and patrolmen became history, so gangs were decimated - as part of the cost-saving justification for CWR investment. Cue Mother Nature doing her thing uninhibited. 

[Michael Hodgson]

3 hours ago, zr2498 said:

I guess it depends on the timing, so to some extent, so oh yes it was.

 

He's behind you !!😁

[Wickham Green too]

9 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Same principle applies, 'we' don't like being taxed.

Well, I think most of us are reluctant to be taxed while realising the necessity ...... on the other hand all the political parties don't like are DESPERATE not to be seen as the ones who dare to put up taxes for fear of losing a vote or two.

[BR60103]

7 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

Amusingly the number of times we were requested to undertake a bridge structure examination by the NR Structure Maintenance Engineer Dept. and having planned it I'd attend the 13-week Possession meeting at Reading only to find I was planning to examine the bridge in the same possession as it was being demolished and re-build for the GWML electrification. 

Did you still get paid for it?

 

[Oldddudders]

12 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

Amusingly the number of times we were requested to undertake a bridge structure examination by the NR Structure Maintenance Engineer Dept. and having planned it I'd attend the 13-week Possession meeting at Reading only to find I was planning to examine the bridge in the same possession as it was being demolished and re-build for the GWML electrification. This only further added to my opinion that certain sections of NR couldn't tie their shoelaces properly let alone talk to each other and I was well out of it.

40 years ago I used to chair the Quarterly Engineering Works Programme meetings for South Eastern Division. I don't ever recall the engineers being in this sort of disarray. The most difficult bit was pathing the precious Paper Trains through possessions. 

[Wickham Green too]

On 21/10/2023 at 17:07, Ian Hargrave said:

You might like to (or not ) observe the national collection of masonry planting currently on view at Crewe station. Such unlooked for wall gardens may soon find their way onto a Gardeners World programme 

This was Worcester's entry for the 'Viaducts in Bloom' competition last year : - 

 

9/7/22

[Enterprisingwestern]

38 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

This was Worcester's entry for the 'Viaducts in Bloom' competition last year : - 

 

9/7/22

 

No danger there then, and nothing of consequence underneath for masonry to fall on!

 

Mike.