Incident at Enfield Town 12/10/21

[irish_rail]

One irony with TPWS on buffer stop approaches is that as drivers are forced to creep into platforms at low speed the chance of a micro sleep or momentary loss of concentration increase. Off the top of my head I can think of two collisions into buffers at Paddington in past 5 years caused by sleep or loss of concentration.

I can't comment too much on that part of the world, but railhead adhesion problems haven't really kicked off too much just yet with the leaves still on the trees and the weather dry and mild. That's not to say there isn't any slippage at all, just very little so far.

I'd be shocked if this incident turns out to be anything other than driver loss of concentration or falling asleep, but we will of course need to wait for the report to find out. I do hope for the drivers sake that it was adhesion issues or a fault with the train.

 

[dk1]

Unit will go to Ilford overnight at a max 20mph.

 

[theageofthetra]

To add further fire to the flames, seen a tweet that suggests it failed to call at stop before. Probably total wibble, and nothing on RTT to suggest it.

 

[Paul Jones 88]

Trial by Twitter shouldn't be a thing.
Leave it to official procedure.

 

[dk1]

Trial by Twitter shouldn't be a thing.
Leave it to official procedure.

That’s modern life & ill informed media for you.

 

[theageofthetra]

That’s modern life & ill informed media for you.

Is this the same unit that hit the buffers in a depot?

 

[dk1]

Is this the same unit that hit the buffers in a depot?

I haven’t a clue.

 

[Omnishambles]

The train is going to have to be removed and the line restored before any passenger service can recommence.

Absolutely not. They would not want passengers anywhere near Enfield Town until it is sorted out. Southbury and Enfield Chase are perfectly reasonable alternatives.

So no trains to Enfield since I’m guessing, but maybe not in the ‘absolutely not’ or ‘the train will have to be removed’.
Likely scenario of today is that the incident occurred followed by an emergency OHL isolation (likely Bury St Jn) which would have then been followed by some localised switching to reduce the area once OHL staff arrived on site. They may not have been able to carry out the switching required to run a train service as local switching would not allow. It doesn’t look favourable to me for P.1 from my memories of dealing with isolations and isolation diagrams and P.3 may also be OOU due to fouling issues (doubtful) or instability of the stranded train. It may also be that the driver has alleged an issue, any sort of issue, on the approach to the station and RAIB have not given the all clear to run and that was what has caused the non-running all day or it may be simply be that the TOC and NR took the decision purely be cause of the optics with other stations also close by.
These are just some of the simple reasons why trains would not run for the rest of the day, rather than just a simple no, absolutely not which would not be the case.

 

[JonathanH]

These are just some of the simple reasons why trains would not run for the rest of the day, rather than just a simple no, absolutely not which would not be the case.

Given the damage you would at least want a screen around the train. Obviously isolation of electrics prevents running but in this day and age you simply don't want the general public at a crash scene until it is all tidied up.

Letting the accident and recovery people having full access gets the job done quicker.

 

[Alanko]

Perhaps we wait for the RAIB to tell us what the cause was (railhead conditions or otherwise) rather than guess?

I've seen a similar, slightly pompous stance on aviation forums. Anything happens involving an aircraft, and something not very good occurring to it, and somebody feels duty bound to trot out the plea 'we must wait for the AAIB to produce their report!' Always a whiff of the Walter Mitty 'I know planes, me' about it.

We are small fry and our voices don't really matter. This is a discussion forum, so I see no immediate issue with some level of speculation. You will find more vivid speculation in the comments section of the corresponding Daily Mail article, so you won't achieve much by hushing up a fairly small forum. The RAIB aren't going to bias their reporting based on the consensus reached by a discussion forum either, so I don't see a Rick there.

At worst some gutter-tier journalist is going to come sniffing around looking to flesh out the bare bones of an article.

 

[Recessio]

Trial by Twitter shouldn't be a thing.
Leave it to official procedure.

Official procedure being trial by RailForum?

 

[the sniper]

It'd be interesting to see how they get/got it down and the planning that went into it. Potential for it doing more damage coming down then it did going up.

 

[Deafdoggie]

Trial by Twitter shouldn't be a thing.
Leave it to official procedure.

That’s modern life & ill informed media for you.

Official procedure being trial by RailForum?

All very good, till a lorry hits a railway bridge. Then everyone on here is straight into blaming the lorry driver, they should be sacked on the spot and have their licence removed. Railways can do no wrong till proven, lorry drivers are always at fault.

 

[ComUtoR]

All very good, till a lorry hits a railway bridge. Then everyone on here is straight into blaming the lorry driver, they should be sacked on the spot and have their licence removed. Railways can do no wrong till proven, lorry drivers are always at fault.

This forum is littered with industry experts, insiders, and very experienced people. We can give you a list of possibilities of what may or may not have happened.

For lorries, we aren't experts and generally there hasn't been a list of possible reasons why there are underlying reasons why someone drove into a bridge. Even Lorry Drivers say that it's driver error.

Speculation can be detrimental. Again, we know that there will be an extensive report published with the precise details with what happened. Why speculate when all you need is patience ? Discussion happens after.

I'm happy to discuss but wild accusations and dismissing industry experts and experienced people just seems kinda pointless at times.

 

[Spartacus]

I've seen a similar, slightly pompous stance on aviation forums. Anything happens involving an aircraft, and something not very good occurring to it, and somebody feels duty bound to trot out the plea 'we must wait for the AAIB to produce their report!' Always a whiff of the Walter Mitty 'I know planes, me' about it.

We are small fry and our voices don't really matter. This is a discussion forum, so I see no immediate issue with some level of speculation. You will find more vivid speculation in the comments section of the corresponding Daily Mail article, so you won't achieve much by hushing up a fairly small forum. The RAIB aren't going to bias their reporting based on the consensus reached by a discussion forum either, so I don't see a Rick there.

At worst some gutter-tier journalist is going to come sniffing around looking to flesh out the bare bones of an article.

It's all very well there being informed speculation, but there's actually very little to go off so far, what we're seeing off most people are uninformed guesses. I don't like that kind of speculation as I've seen how many times a totally wrong guess gets clung to and becomes the accepted 'truth' long before anything official is released, and often after it too, and getting people to give up what they've accepted as 'truth', despite contrary facts can be practically impossible!

This forum is littered with industry experts, insiders, and very experienced people. We can give you a list of possibilities of what may or may not have happened.

It's usually not too hard to work out which is which either, especially when something like this happens.

 

[43066]

One irony with TPWS on buffer stop approaches is that as drivers are forced to creep into platforms at low speed the chance of a micro sleep or momentary loss of concentration increase. Off the top of my head I can think of two collisions into buffers at Paddington in past 5 years caused by sleep or loss of concentration.

I can't comment too much on that part of the world, but railhead adhesion problems haven't really kicked off too much just yet with the leaves still on the trees and the weather dry and mild. That's not to say there isn't any slippage at all, just very little so far.

I'd be shocked if this incident turns out to be anything other than driver loss of concentration or falling asleep, but we will of course need to wait for the report to find out. I do hope for the drivers sake that it was adhesion issues or a fault with the train.

I have to say this mirrors my thoughts exactly, and to my mind is a more a likely explanation than mechanical failure or adhesion issues (not that the possibility of either can be ruled out).

Re. the first paragraph, buffer stop collisions are rare, but not unknown. I’ve known a couple of drivers who’ve had them. Both were off track for an extended period, subjected to a battery of tests to identify “sleep apnoea” (not diagnosed in either case). Both also felt pressured to admit to “distraction due to packing bag” etc.

In short, there was a search for any explanation that didn’t involve the TOC having to accept they might have been shattered due to shifts, and simply fallen asleep.

 

[dk1]

All very good, till a lorry hits a railway bridge. Then everyone on here is straight into blaming the lorry driver, they should be sacked on the spot and have their licence removed. Railways can do no wrong till proven, lorry drivers are always at fault.

Everyone??

 

[christopher]

Line now reopened according to National Rail on Twitter.

Out of interest, does anyone know how they would recover a train that's ended up in this position? Do they separate it from the rest of the unit and lift back on?

 

[Deafdoggie]

Everyone??

Well, ok...one or two.

 

[Domk]

The 0924 will be the first out and will be from platform 2 (the platform of the incident). I had to go to work otherwise I’d go in and have a look at the buffer works. The train coming in is massively late so I expect it to leave 10mins late

 

[FrodshamJnct]

I've seen a similar, slightly pompous stance on aviation forums. Anything happens involving an aircraft, and something not very good occurring to it, and somebody feels duty bound to trot out the plea 'we must wait for the AAIB to produce their report!' Always a whiff of the Walter Mitty 'I know planes, me' about it.

We are small fry and our voices don't really matter. This is a discussion forum, so I see no immediate issue with some level of speculation. You will find more vivid speculation in the comments section of the corresponding Daily Mail article, so you won't achieve much by hushing up a fairly small forum. The RAIB aren't going to bias their reporting based on the consensus reached by a discussion forum either, so I don't see a Rick there.

At worst some gutter-tier journalist is going to come sniffing around looking to flesh out the bare bones of an article.

Well said.

 

[SGD5891]

Perhaps we wait for the RAIB to tell us what the cause was (railhead conditions or otherwise) rather than guess?

I don’t think the RAIB need to be involved, he has already made up his mind on what happened…..

 

[Omnishambles]

Given the damage you would at least want a screen around the train. Obviously isolation of electrics prevents running but in this day and age you simply don't want the general public at a crash scene until it is all tidied up.

Letting the accident and recovery people having full access gets the job done quicker.

Yes I agree with that. Likely would’ve been the busiest day at the station for a while as rubberneckers turned up. My point was outlining some of the mainly operational reasons why train services couldn’t or weren’t continued as opposed to ‘the train must be moved’ or ‘absolutely not, until everything is sorted’ was all

 

[option]

There are three platforms at the station - is it not possible to just isolate platform 2 and run a service from one of the others - the train must be well clear of the points.
This is a busy commuter branch why is there apparently little progress all day - I assume the two EMT3s shown in the Bush Hill Park Berths on OTT are line blocks.

Edited regarding progress

Evidence collection;
photos of everything, measurements, collection of data from on-board systems, collection of cctv, taking of statements

 

[Dave W]

Also, Enfield is hardly the biggest station - it's a tight concourse and one of the platforms (1) is across from the incident platform. The other (3) is rarely used and is in the same "bay"(?) as the incident. Perhaps if this had happened on platform 1 a service from 3 might have been considered. I'm guessing the fact it happened on the middle platform road basically sealed the deal on a closure until the train was moved.

As it happens, reopening within a single day feels (with no evidence) fairly quick to me - the "old days" of reopening the railway within hours of an incident are long gone. Does this point to comparatively little damage to stock and/or infrastructure?

 

[GB]

It'd be interesting to see how they get/got it down and the planning that went into it. Potential for it doing more damage coming down then it did going up.

Secured with re-railing jacks, buffer stop was cut out of the front of the train then the jacks lowered train onto temporary track.

 

[choochoochoo]

I have to say this mirrors my thoughts exactly, and to my mind is a more a likely explanation than mechanical failure or adhesion issues (not that the possibility of either can be ruled out).

Re. the first paragraph, buffer stop collisions are rare, but not unknown. I’ve known a couple of drivers who’ve had them. Both were off track for an extended period, subjected to a battery of tests to identify “sleep apnoea” (not diagnosed in either case). Both also felt pressured to admit to “distraction due to packing bag” etc.

In short, there was a search for any explanation that didn’t involve the TOC having to accept they might have been shattered due to shifts, and simply fallen asleep.

I'd echo this.

Think the rumble strips as you enter the buffer stops at some platforms at kings cross are a very useful tool to reawaken an under-stimulated driver in those critical last moments.

 

[DelW]

*typical clean dry wheel and rail has a coefficient of friction of 0.6, which allows braking of up to 60% of g. Normal timetabling relies on achieving brake step 2 which is 6% of g, requiring a coefficient of friction of 0.06. Railhead coefficient of friction <0.01 have been measured on UK infrastructure, meaning wheel slide occurs as soon as any brake demand is made which exceeds 1% of g which makes stopping difficult when brake step 1 is typically 3% of g.

Very interesting, thanks for the insight. As an engineer, I'm always pleased to see numbers derived from real world experience quoted, which help my understanding.

 

[507 001]

I'd echo this.

Think the rumble strips as you enter the buffer stops at some platforms at kings cross are a very useful tool to reawaken an under-stimulated driver in those critical last moments.

That's not what they are for, although it is a useful side-effect.

 

[TheHSRailFan]

Line now reopened according to National Rail on Twitter.

Out of interest, does anyone know how they would recover a train that's ended up in this position? Do they separate it from the rest of the unit and lift back on?

Most likely either a crane while the rescue train pulls it out or just the recuse train pulling it out.