Derailment and fire in Quebec

[kevinlms]

I can't see anything wrong in principle in leaving a train on a running line if there are very few trains and it won't get in the way of another one.

Also remember that these trains are a mile long and that needs a heck of a space finding for a loop, and also a lot of money.

 

Well that sounds blindingly obvious to me.

 

It comes down to a number of problems, involving the fact that for some reason an unmanned heavily loaded oil rain run down a hill and crashed with disastrous

results.

 

1/ Was the train adequately secured, with enough handbrakes on so that if the for some reason an unknown problem with the locomotive, caused the engine to stop & eventually the air brake system to fail? If sufficient handbrakes were on, it ought not to make any difference.

 

2/ Were the handbrakes released by a 3rd party? Possible causes are vandalism (a modern scourge), protest action (although those against oil usage & transport are usually pro-green and so the result is totally disastrous to their beliefs) or a terrorist act (the latter I've not heard mention at all) - certainly the result is one they'd approve of!

 

3/ The locomotive fire & actions of the fire service & rail employee who attended. Difficult to see how any of these people would have touched the handbrakes on the tankers, but did they do something to the locomotive other than shut down the engine? Yes, that action would cause the Air Brakes to fail at a later time, but the train ought not be reliant on them if the train is unattended. Diesel engines can stop for any number of reasons, some serious, others trivial, so cannot be guaranteed to keep running.

 

 

4/ The idea of shouting down suggestions from those overseas as 'its not the way its done this side of the pond' are wrong, if there is something fundamentally wrong with the way 'the system' works, if such accidents are subject to repetition, it needs to be addressed. The damage bill for this incident will have paid for a LOT of man hours, which may have been as simple as paying for a 2nd person, basically trained, for an hour or two, to have assisted applying more handbrakes. The track worker later recalled could have easily have done this under supervision.

 

5/ What if the train had started moving downhill while the driver was out applying handbrakes on the tankers? He'd have watched helplessly, with no difference to the result, as hard to evacuate a town in the time available.

 

A lot is unknown & no doubt a proper inquiry will have something to say.

[Gerald Henriksen]

If the TSB and TC are going to focus on how many handbrakes do you need and start a big debate about leaving trains unattended, then they've completely missed the point and we may as well get building pipelines. Sure, they'll spill oil but they aren't as likely to devastate a town centre.

It's surely about the lack of extra layers of security, not how well you use the only layer you have, important though that is. Can't believe that's only a British thing.

 

There is absolutely no indication that the TSB is doing what you fear.

 

The TSB report into this will not come out (in all likelihood) until next year at the earliest.

 

In the meantime,they however have found 2 issues that in their opinion cannot wait for the full report to come out, and so they have released these letters to try and have these issues dealt with immediately.

 

There is also the possibility that there is some politics involved in these 2 letters.

 

TC has to answer to a committee of MPs next week, and having something to act on may help deflect some criticism.

 

TSB may be taking the opportunity to try and get some long held issues finally dealt with given that 1) CN/CP have indicated changes like this have already been implemented post Lac-Megantic and 2) TC may be more likely to institute new regulations given that CN/CP may have already done it and the grilling next week.

 

Either way, we need to wait for the official report to eventually come out.

Edited July 21, 2013 by Gerald Henriksen

[highpeak]

I will indeed be looking at the final report, and since the TSB exists in relationship to TC the same way the NTSB exists in relationship to the FAA I have no real confidence that the outcome will be anything useful. If the TSB report calls for meaningful change I would fully expect TC to ignore it. You can find a long list of NTSB desired changes that have been completely ignored by the regulatory bodies, I doubt Canada is any better. Look at the shameful behaviour this week of your politicians playing games in the face of an audit that said TC is not doing their job.

The interim report is just a case of looking like you are doing something and misses the point completely. Yes, if you put the handbrakes on properly, you might not have this particular accident but that begs the question of what is applying the handbrakes properly. If TSB looks at their own investigations they only need to go back 18 months to find one where the crew believed they had indeed applied the handbrakes properly in line with CN and TC rules, yet you still had a runaway. You just didn't manage to incinerate a town because it was coal and in the middle of nowhere. And the crew was agile enough to get out the way without getting killed. So that's OK then.

If TSB and TC learned anything from that one, there's no evidence I can see to support it.

Judicial inquiry please.

[dibber25]

Why is it sancrosanct?  Give me a reason.  Other than it just is.  How long does it take to make a train stopped on the main track dangerous?  One hour?  Two hours?  4 hours?  Twelve hours?  If I park atrain on the main and it can roll away or I park a train on the siding and it can roll away, why its the main track more dangerous?  If I comply with the rule and still get the exact same outcome, its the rule useful?

 

Because the access to everywhere else is virtually limitless if it starts moving. It is dangerous the moment that it is left unattended.

 

This of course assumes that there is a car park.  If you get on a back road in the US you can drive for miles without finding a "car park" or "lay-by".  If you are on a major highway and you are stuck in traffic and traffic is backed up for hours, you are saying that nobody stops their cars on the highway, every body exits the highway and finds a parking lot?

 

So too in the UK, but even on a backroad there's usually a verge or a field gate to pull into. I can't recall in 50 years of driving, ever leaving my car unattended in the middle of the road. It is very rare, even if the traffic is backed up for hours, for people to leave their cars UNATTENDED on the highway. 

 

Au contraire, it is the safest place.  It is the only place where movement is tracked or authorized.  In CTC it is the only place movement can be seen.  Its the only place coded cab signals and automatic train stop work.  Its the only place there is bock signal protection.

 

That may be true in the UK, or on principal routes in North America but evidently NOT so in many cases including at Nantes

 

All this assumes that you have sidings and you have trap points.  On multiple track lines you might have 150 7000-10000 ft trains and only a half dozen sidings.  So if I can ONLY hold a train in a siding and I have a incident that stops traffic on the main track, Where are you proposing I put the 150 trains?

 

That why you need investment to upgrade routes such as the MMAR to take this weight and type of traffic. 

 

The reality that that rule would be unfeasible.  If I had a derailment I on multiple track would need to instantly double the number of employees and then as soon as the track opened I would have to furlough all the extra employees until the next incident a couple months later (and I have managed enough large incidents to understand the crew demands).    Its a wonderful sermon, but very difficult to execute in the real world.

 

But like I said earlier, there's clearly nothing that could have been done to prevent this accident, beyond relying on people to do their jobs properly. I see that the cost is reckoned will be in excess of $100million and the end of MMAR but more important than that, the cost of 47 lives ought to be worth the price of at least a wllingness to risk-assess these routes and decide where safety measures such as loops and trap points should be put in, just in case someone makes the same mistake again. Because - if the rules ain't changed, sooner or later someone will. I think I'm probably going to stop commenting on this thread now, so no more sermons.

CHRIS LEIGH

[The Stationmaster]

I can't see anything wrong in principle in leaving a train on a running line if there are very few trains and it won't get in the way of another one.

Also remember that these trains are a mile long and that needs a heck of a space finding for a loop, and also a lot of money.

 

Ed

is it me, or did the French commentary in the video revert to Anglo-Saxon when things exploded?

If you have no choice and they are manned then why not - quite agree.  But just dumping them while the crew hops off is a very different thing in my view - just don't blame me if the train runs away for good reasons or bad.

 

As for digging out a queue of trains behind an incident - been there, done that, got the t-shirt - the difference is one of scale.  We have lots more trains, on the busier routes, because they are more frequent but similarly with our longest freight trains we don't have many places to put them between their end terminals unless we split them or block up empty roads, but they still have to be either left (manned) or pulled back out (when you can find engines and men to do it).  Different railways, different conditions, different problems but the physics are the same - you can't buck gravity or the factor of adhesion of a steel wheel on a steel rail.

[The Stationmaster]

I will indeed be looking at the final report, and since the TSB exists in relationship to TC the same way the NTSB exists in relationship to the FAA I have no real confidence that the outcome will be anything useful. If the TSB report calls for meaningful change I would fully expect TC to ignore it. You can find a long list of NTSB desired changes that have been completely ignored by the regulatory bodies, I doubt Canada is any better. Look at the shameful behaviour this week of your politicians playing games in the face of an audit that said TC is not doing their job.

The interim report is just a case of looking like you are doing something and misses the point completely. Yes, if you put the handbrakes on properly, you might not have this particular accident but that begs the question of what is applying the handbrakes properly. If TSB looks at their own investigations they only need to go back 18 months to find one where the crew believed they had indeed applied the handbrakes properly in line with CN and TC rules, yet you still had a runaway. You just didn't manage to incinerate a town because it was coal and in the middle of nowhere. And the crew was agile enough to get out the way without getting killed. So that's OK then.

If TSB and TC learned anything from that one, there's no evidence I can see to support it.

Judicial inquiry please.

But would a judicial inquiry actually achieve anything more?  Our experience of the involvement of the legal trade in rail incident inquiries in Britain is, in my view, far from positive and the only one that has had any real impact was that of Mr Justice Hidden's into the Clapham collision (although things I hear suggest that even some of his recommendations are now being ignored by the more cavalier freight operators and by some infrastructure contractors - in fact I know the latter to be true, from an impeccable, regulatory, source).

 

The appalling tragedy of the Ladbroke Grove collision was well lost as the legal trade made fools of themselves at the Inquiry and some extremely important issues were simply swept aside or had attention diverted from them by skillful presentation on the part of railway professionals.  The truth was not lost but there was far too much emphasis on the wrong area by the inquiry and as for what happened following the Southall collision it truly showed up the fallacy of applying legal processes -= perhaps even with the consequence that further lives were lost in a subsequent incident.

 

My faith in 'the judicial process' getting involved in areas of technicality is, I regret to say, both limited and of a very cynical nature.  Maybe the Canadians are better at it  especially if they happen to be French Canadian and think in the French manner.

[The Stationmaster]

Accident causation particulary on railways is never simple, comparisons between the British operating methods and the rest of the World are pretty meaningless as the railways evolved under a totally different regulatory model.

 

While there is a justifiable focus on how the train ran away, the causation of the derailment and subsequent explosion and fire is likely to be far more complex, condition of track, rolling stock, volatility of the Baaken crude.

 

Unfortunately the citizens of Mac Megantic have paid the price of being meat in the sandwitch in titianic struggle between Government and big business on one side  and environmental lobby and private citizens opposing fracking and further pipelines.

 

While the British Isles has a more stringent rail regulatory environment than most countries this has failed to prevent disasters arising from systemic failings such as at Clapham Junction, Potters Bar.

 

Derailments of trains carrying hazardous freight have occurred (fortunately without disasterous consequences) in the UK and countries with a similar regulatory model, mainly as a result of track and rolling stock defects, but run aways are not exacty unknown for example Carr Bridge.

Interestingly the two examples of Clapham and Potters Bar were both down to human failings, to shortcomings which were not prevented or tackled and mitigated by systems of work.  Maybe the same could be said by the very simple basic cause of what happened at Lac Megantic - a stabled train ran away?  

 

Everything which happened following that runaway was no more, in reality, than a consequence of the initial failure - a speeding train derailed when it hit curvature and/or pointwork (nothing novel in that) but then comes a further area of investigation into why the tanks ruptured, what started the fire, why did it burn in such a way and so - that is a separate issue and one which is a consequence of the runaway.  

[dave1905]

The MMA did lots of things that I personally would take exception to.  One man crews in dark territory?  That would be the least optimal place to use them in my personal opinion.  Why would the Canadian government approve them on that line?   In dark territory, all the switches and derails are manual and somebody has to get off the engine to line the switches and derails and then line behind.  Should there have been a derail at Nantes?  If there was a spot that deserved one, sure , that would be it, and it ought to be a split point derail too.  Only 11 handbrakes on a 1.2% grade?  Sounds light to me, the railroads I am familiar with use double that many.  So yes, all those things would have been great steps in eliminating risk.  A larger railroad with deeper pockets might have even spent the millions of dollars to move the siding to someplace else (assuming there was a someplace else).  The situation is horrible and was absolutely preventable by several different means.  Absolutely no disagreement that the MMA screwed up tragically.

 

What I am objecting to are the broad brush solutions that every train, everywhere, has to be treated as if its a train on a 1.2% grade.  Its not necessary.  Its not feasible.  And there isn't the capital to do the things you are talking about everywhere.  Its not economically feasible.  The reason the MMA is operating the line is because the CP decided that they couldn't make money on the line, they sold it off.  The freight railroads in NA are for profit businesses.  If the cost of maintaining the line  is excessive, the line just gets abandoned.  That's why in my area there are hundreds of miles of bike trails named after the former railroad rights of way on which they are built.  There are also hundreds of businesses and town that have dried up because the railroad went away.  The MMA has a good chance of becoming a bike trail now.

 

From what I've read here the UK roads are removing "catch points" on their passenger lines.  If catch points were essential to safety and if human life is valued above cargo, it would be logical to think that the FIRST place they  would keep catch points is on passenger lines?  If the UK railroads don't think they are absolutely necessary for safety in the UK,  why are am I being told they are absolutely necessary for safety over here?

[Gary H]

But would a judicial inquiry actually achieve anything more?  Our experience of the involvement of the legal trade in rail incident inquiries in Britain is, in my view, far from positive and the only one that has had any real impact was that of Mr Justice Hidden's into the Clapham collision (although things I hear suggest that even some of his recommendations are now being ignored by the more cavalier freight operators and by some infrastructure contractors - in fact I know the latter to be true, from an impeccable, regulatory, source).

That's very true, Mike and its becoming more commonplace to 'break Hidden' in this day and age!

No names, no pact drill.

I don't doubt for a minute the logistics of crewing and accommodating these mile plus long trains in NA must make it difficult at times but I still say that leaving one unattended, on a grade, is railway / railroad suicide!

As you rightly said earlier here, even within an engineering possession its fairly rare. Do you think an engineering train or any other train for that matter would be left unattended on the Lickey for instance? I would put a months wages on NO!

Edited July 21, 2013 by Gary H

[davknigh]

-Big snip-

My faith in 'the judicial process' getting involved in areas of technicality is, I regret to say, both limited and of a very cynical nature.  Maybe the Canadians are better at it  especially if they happen to be French Canadian and think in the French manner.

Ah, but we are due to have a Federal Election in 2014. Anything that keeps this incident in the open will be critical especially as Quebec is the key to a majority government. This could get even more interesting.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Gary H]

From what I've read here the UK roads are removing "catch points" on their passenger lines.  If catch points were essential to safety and if human life is valued above cargo, it would be logical to think that the FIRST place they  would keep catch points is on passenger lines?  If the UK railroads don't think they are absolutely necessary for safety in the UK,  why are am I being told they are absolutely necessary for safety over here?

OK, Il start by saying that I work for the biggest infrastructure maintainer / owner here but that said I don't know a quarter of the answers for the above but Il hazard a guess or two.

Here, we have a very effective train stop system known as TPWS which will intervene and stop the train if it blows a red signal or maybe in an overspeed situation on the approach to a red signal or other restrictive aspect.

There is no dark territory to speak of or when there is, there is only one train allowed onto that line and its effectively 'locked in' by itself until it leaves. (Im thinking branch line working here)

Secondly, we don't have anywhere near the gradients that America has.

A train here will runaway if its continuous brake is relied upon to hold it on a grade without a running engine, the same as it will in NA but the risk of that happening is mitigated. (trains are not left unattended on running lines or 'the main' in US parlance.

 

(For the benefit of our over seas posters-)

Its ironic that the Ladbroke Grove disaster was caused by a signal being passed at danger and that the sand drag (similar to a catch) that would have prevented the accident was removed about 10 years before! Trouble was, we didn't have TPWS at that time either.

[Grovenor]

From what I've read here the UK roads are removing "catch points" on their passenger lines.  If catch points were essential to safety and if human life is valued above cargo, it would be logical to think that the FIRST place they  would keep catch points is on passenger lines?  If the UK railroads don't think they are absolutely necessary for safety in the UK,  why are am I being told they are absolutely necessary for safety over here?

Here you need to distinguish between "catch points" which have been removed, and "trap points" which remain mandatory in scecific circumstances. It is trap points which the UK contingent have been suggesting above for the most part.

Catch points in Uk parlance were required on the running lines on uphill grades to catch and derail any vehicles that broke away from the back of a freight heading up the hill, these were required when the freight trains were not fitted with continuous brakes. Since operation of unfitted freights has ceased the catch points are redundant.

Trap points are required to protect any passenger running line from freight lines and sidings to divert or derail any unauthorised movement before it encroaches on the passenger line. Assuming the MMA line concerned does not run any passenger trains then these would not be requirements as such.  Anyone wanting to operate a similar line in the UK would have to write a safety case and convince the ORR (Office of rail regulation) that the result would be ALARP. It would be pretty difficult given that there is effectively no UK precedent for this style of operation. Would they have foreseen this particular risk a few weeks ago, who knows but they would now! and effective mitigation would be required.

Keith

[The Stationmaster]

 

 

From what I've read here the UK roads are removing "catch points" on their passenger lines.  If catch points were essential to safety and if human life is valued above cargo, it would be logical to think that the FIRST place they  would keep catch points is on passenger lines?  If the UK railroads don't think they are absolutely necessary for safety in the UK,  why are am I being told they are absolutely necessary for safety over here?

Don't confuse catch points with trap points - we've got enough problems with British people not getting the two correct    

 

A trap point is there to do what it says on the tin - it 'traps' anything making an unsignalled, unauthorised movement from a yard, siding or goods line before it can get onto a running line.  A catch point on the other hand was there to 'catch' breakaways from the rear end of a train not fitted with automatic brakes.  Once we got to the end of having unfitted wagons there was no longer any need for catch points as - in theory and usually in practice - anything which broke away would stop because of the action of the automatic brake.

 

If we delve back into history it was also the case that in certain situations and circumstances trap points were provided on passenger lines - they were never very common except in situations where clearances were very tight or they allowed certain signalling Regulations to be used or they were on lines (usually bay platforms) were vehicles were left unattended and relying on handbrakes.  By the 1980s statistics were showing pretty conclusively that trap points on passenger lines were a greater menace than not having them as more damage was resulting from them being inadvertently entered when open than was ever going to result from sidelong collisions plus their function could to some extent be contained within the signalling system.  The arrival of ATP and TPWS rendered them completely redundant.

 

While Ladbroke Grove was an extremely nasty incident and signal SN109 was a multiple SPAD (Signal Passed At Danger) signal things became more than a little obscured by the fog of the judicially led inquiry which meant the eye was taken off more than a few crucial balls.  Although my intimate knowledge of the area was more related to the old layout (for several years 'I drove to work' over the Up Main Line at that location) the situation was basically very simple - SN109 effectively had the equivalent of a half mile safety overlap when the norm for such a signal was 300 yards; once you passed it you either had to go to the left or - unusually - back to the right, straight ahead led nowhere and it is very, very obvious which line you are on; the signal had in rear of it one of the best observable and obvious double yellow and single yellow aspect sequences I have ever seen although SN109 itself was very poorly sited with a sub-standard sighting time (which in itself meant it was a signal you would pay special attention to when road learning and even more so when approaching it under restrictive aspects); at the time it was passed at danger every other signal on that gantry was also showing a red aspect - there was no chance at all of misreading across the gantry; on one previous SPAD the Driver concerned had stopped because he knew he shouldn't be going the way the points in advance of him were set.

 

So ignoring everything else in the incident the Driver of the train who SPAD\d SN109 should have had sufficient road knowledge to realise he was approaching a  'difficult' signal which was at danger and he should have rapidly cottoned on having passed it at danger that he was not going the right way - or putting it another way he hadn't got a very good idea of where he was or where he was going.  All of which received remarkably little attention in the inquiry despite being one of the most critical factors of all - hence my scorn for involving amateurs from the legal trade in such inquiries.  But notwithstanding that the Driver's operating company were eventually given a substantial fine for their failings in respect of his road knowledge tuition and being passed out to drive.i

[Gerald Henriksen]

The interim report is just a case of looking like you are doing something and misses the point completely.

The point is that no interim report has been released.

 

The 2 "letters" that have been released by the TSB are items that the TSB feel need to be acted on and cannot wait for the full report, but they in no way indicate in which way or how the investigation is going.

 

If TSB and TC learned anything from that one, there's no evidence I can see to support it.

Judicial inquiry please.

Yes, because of course governments never ignore the results of judicial inquiries.

[dibber25]

For the avoidance of confusion, here is a trap point which prevents anything running away on the single-track 'escaping' onto the other lines. In this case all are freight-only lines (near Chinley in the Peak District) but they carry heavy stone trains (and nothing else, I believe) and have been engineered to do that job. 

[Gerald Henriksen]

Ah, but we are due to have a Federal Election in 2014. Anything that keeps this incident in the open will be critical especially as Quebec is the key to a majority government. This could get even more interesting.

The current government, which has a majority, only got 5 out of 75 seats from Quebec. Even if you took those 5 seats away from the government, they would still have a majority.

 

Which is not to say the Quebec hasn't been historically required for a majority government, but the last election proved that it can be overcome.

 

More importantly, the next Canadian federal election is scheduled for Oct 19 2015, there is simply no way even with a judicial inquiry to keep this front page news for another 2 years.

[BG John]

I don't know if this article adds anything useful to the discussion.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/21/uk-train-burkhardt-idUKBRE96K04J20130721

[dibber25]

Don't confuse catch points with trap points - we've got enough problems with British people not getting the two correct    

 

A trap point is there to do what it says on the tin - it 'traps' anything making an unsignalled, unauthorised movement from a yard, siding or goods line before it can get onto a running line.  A catch point on the other hand was there to 'catch' breakaways from the rear end of a train not fitted with automatic brakes.  Once we got to the end of having unfitted wagons there was no longer any need for catch points as - in theory and usually in practice - anything which broke away would stop because of the action of the automatic brake.

 

If we delve back into history it was also the case that in certain situations and circumstances trap points were provided on passenger lines - they were never very common except in situations where clearances were very tight or they allowed certain signalling Regulations to be used or they were on lines (usually bay platforms) were vehicles were left unattended and relying on handbrakes.  By the 1980s statistics were showing pretty conclusively that trap points on passenger lines were a greater menace than not having them as more damage was resulting from them being inadvertently entered when open than was ever going to result from sidelong collisions plus their function could to some extent be contained within the signalling system.  The arrival of ATP and TPWS rendered them completely redundant.

 

While Ladbroke Grove was an extremely nasty incident and signal SN109 was a multiple SPAD (Signal Passed At Danger) signal things became more than a little obscured by the fog of the judicially led inquiry which meant the eye was taken off more than a few crucial balls.  Although my intimate knowledge of the area was more related to the old layout (for several years 'I drove to work' over the Up Main Line at that location) the situation was basically very simple - SN109 effectively had the equivalent of a half mile safety overlap when the norm for such a signal was 300 yards; once you passed it you either had to go to the left or - unusually - back to the right, straight ahead led nowhere and it is very, very obvious which line you are on; the signal had in rear of it one of the best observable and obvious double yellow and single yellow aspect sequences I have ever seen although SN109 itself was very poorly sited with a sub-standard sighting time (which in itself meant it was a signal you would pay special attention to when road learning and even more so when approaching it under restrictive aspects); at the time it was passed at danger every other signal on that gantry was also showing a red aspect - there was no chance at all of misreading across the gantry; on one previous SPAD the Driver concerned had stopped because he knew he shouldn't be going the way the points in advance of him were set.

 

So ignoring everything else in the incident the Driver of the train who SPAD\d SN109 should have had sufficient road knowledge to realise he was approaching a  'difficult' signal which was at danger and he should have rapidly cottoned on having passed it at danger that he was not going the right way - or putting it another way he hadn't got a very good idea of where he was or where he was going.  All of which received remarkably little attention in the inquiry despite being one of the most critical factors of all - hence my scorn for involving amateurs from the legal trade in such inquiries.  But notwithstanding that the Driver's operating company were eventually given a substantial fine for their failings in respect of his road knowledge tuition and being passed out to drive.i

You're absolutely right, Mike, and far closer to these things and more knowledgeable about them than me but I think that there are a couple of 'parallels' worth mentioning:

Ladbrooke Grove was a major factor in the demise of Thames Trains, the name and franchise being obliterated very quickly afterwards, as will likely happen with MMAR.

Ladbrooke Grove really concentrated the minds on the problem of SPADs which are also primarily a driver-error. I seem to recall the Southall accident resulted in a prosecution because the driver was doing other stuff when he should have been looking at the signals. After those two, and other less dramatic SPADs, there was quick action to introduce TPWS and to evaluate the more complex system ATP that was trialled on the WR into Paddington but eventually abandoned on cost grounds. There are clearly safety aspects which need to be looked at in relation to runaways (that UP runaway in California wasn't hazchem but did a lot of damage and ran 28 miles on a line used by passenger trains. The consequences could have been far worse) and we must hope that Lac-Megantic is a turning point for North American rail safety, as Ladbrooke Grove was, for different reasons, in the UK. 

CHRIS LEIGH

[Gary H]

Here you need to distinguish between "catch points" which have been removed, and "trap points" which remain mandatory in scecific circumstances. It is trap points which the UK contingent have been suggesting above for the most part.

Catch points in Uk parlance were required on the running lines on uphill grades to catch and derail any vehicles that broke away from the back of a freight heading up the hill, these were required when the freight trains were not fitted with continuous brakes. Since operation of unfitted freights has ceased the catch points are redundant.

Trap points are required to protect any passenger running line from freight lines and sidings to divert or derail any unauthorised movement before it encroaches on the passenger line. Assuming the MMA line concerned does not run any passenger trains then these would not be requirements as such.  Anyone wanting to operate a similar line in the UK would have to write a safety case and convince the ORR (Office of rail regulation) that the result would be ALARP. It would be pretty difficult given that there is effectively no UK precedent for this style of operation. Would they have foreseen this particular risk a few weeks ago, who knows but they would now! and effective mitigation would be required.

Keith

You would be very surprised at the number of folk employed in the industry who only know them as catch points where actually they are referring to trap points!!

[The Stationmaster]

You would be very surprised at the number of folk employed in the industry who only know them as catch points where actually they are referring to trap points!!

Mind you I've even heard of one who refers to stations as 'train stations'!  But you're spot on about the apparent confusion in the minds of folk regarding trap & catch points notwithstanding they have been clearly defined for a good 80 years.

[Gary H]

Mind you I've even heard of one who refers to stations as 'train stations'!  But you're spot on about the apparent confusion in the minds of folk regarding trap & catch points notwithstanding they have been clearly defined for a good 80 years.

Even more worrying was the confusion about 'in rear' and 'ahead of'. They changed it to 'in advance' and 'on the approach to' so as to accommodate the numpties

As a PICOP I never had any problem with the old terms personally LOL.

Im way off topic now though!

[pH]

Ah, but we are due to have a Federal Election in 2014. Anything that keeps this incident in the open will be critical especially as Quebec is the key to a majority government. This could get even more interesting.

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

According to current law, the next federal election could be as late as October 19 2015 and, since the current government is a majority one, I'd say that's likely to be the date. 

 

I also think that the Canadian federal government has no inclination to impose any costly requirements on Canadian railroads given, as Dave1905 says, the fact that "The freight railroads in NA are for profit businesses", and the political bent of this government.

 

(Edit - sorry, I replied without seeing Gerald Henriksen's post at 07:45)

Edited July 21, 2013 by pH

[davknigh]

According to current law, the next federal election could be as late as October 19 2015 and, since the current government is a majority one, I'd say that's likely to be the date. 

 

I also think that the Canadian federal government has no inclination to impose any costly requirements on Canadian railroads given, as Dave1905 says, the fact that "The freight railroads in NA are for profit businesses", and the political bent of this government.

 

(Edit - sorry, I replied without seeing Gerald Henriksen's post at 07:45)

Mea Culpa  There are other elections due in 2014, I was probably just wishing that the Federal government was the one due for a change.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Edwin_m]

Even more worrying was the confusion about 'in rear' and 'ahead of'. They changed it to 'in advance' and 'on the approach to' so as to accommodate the numpties

As a PICOP I never had any problem with the old terms personally LOL.

Im way off topic now though!

Highway engineers of my acquaintance use "in advance" to mean the opposite of the railway meaning.  In my view the frequent transfer of labour between railway and highway contracts makes that one difficult to defend these days. 

[Edwin_m]

You're absolutely right, Mike, and far closer to these things and more knowledgeable about them than me but I think that there are a couple of 'parallels' worth mentioning:

Ladbrooke Grove was a major factor in the demise of Thames Trains, the name and franchise being obliterated very quickly afterwards, as will likely happen with MMAR.

Ladbrooke Grove really concentrated the minds on the problem of SPADs which are also primarily a driver-error. I seem to recall the Southall accident resulted in a prosecution because the driver was doing other stuff when he should have been looking at the signals. After those two, and other less dramatic SPADs, there was quick action to introduce TPWS and to evaluate the more complex system ATP that was trialled on the WR into Paddington but eventually abandoned on cost grounds. There are clearly safety aspects which need to be looked at in relation to runaways (that UP runaway in California wasn't hazchem but did a lot of damage and ran 28 miles on a line used by passenger trains. The consequences could have been far worse) and we must hope that Lac-Megantic is a turning point for North American rail safety, as Ladbrooke Grove was, for different reasons, in the UK. 

CHRIS LEIGH

The GW ATP system was introduced before Southall and Ladbroke Grove.  It was isolated on the train at Southall because (IIRC) the driver wasn't trained it its use, AWS was isolated due to a fault so the driver had nothing to alert him to adverse signals.  Only Great Western trains were fitted with ATP on that route, so the SPAD by a Thames Trains unit at Ladbroke Grove was not protected. 

 

GW ATP is still in use but the decision was made not to adopt either this or the Chiltern system on a wider basis (though it was extended to Heathrow and the Heathrow Express units when that route opened).  TPWS was thought up as a system that would address the majority of the ATP-preventable risk but would be much cheaper, easier and quicker to fit.  Authorisation was awaiting sign-off by John Prescott's department at the time of Ladbroke Grove.  Although the Uff-Cullen report was rather sniffy about it, subsequent experience has borne out the TPWS casualty reduction predictions (which I had a small part in making).