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Miracle escape after metal clip from railway smashes through playroom window

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d9009alycidon

d9009alycidon

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Would be interested to hear form those with industry experience what they think of this story in the Mirror (originally Scottish Daily Record)

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/miracle-escape-after-metal-railway-18998200

"A metal clip from a railway line smashed through the window of a children's playroom.

Childminder Louise Stewart says someone could have been killed by the metal item which is thought to have dislodged from a track adjacent to the home in Carnoustie, Angus.
Louise has urged Network Rail bosses to carry out a full investigation, reports the Daily Record.

The 36-year-old said a child could have been badly hurt if the piece of metal – identified by rail investigators as a pandrol clip – had come through the window during the day.

It left shattered glass all over the floor and in toy boxes, with the clip denting a door and frame.
Louise said: “I am almost certain the clip has flown off the railway at speed.

“Thank God this is no longer my daughter’s bedroom. We moved her to a room next door three weeks ago. During the day, this room is full of children.

“It doesn’t bear thinking about what could have happened if children had been in the room.”

Louise believes the incident happened between 5.40am and 6am.

She said: “We heard a bang but didn’t realise what it was. My neighbours also heard this bang and one of them noticed there was a very fast train going past at this time.

“An ops manager from Network Rail visited us, took a look at the room and confirmed this was a pandrol clip which must have come from the railway as there is no way someone could throw it through with such force. It is a thick, double-glazed window.

“It could have killed someone.”

“I am very concerned about this and will not use that room for work until I can get some answers of why this has happened, or if there is any chance it can happen again.”

Louise and her husband Iain have two children – Jeannie, six, and one-year-old Dougie.

She said: “We were told to leave the room as it is until the police have come, there is glass everywhere.”

A Network Rail spokesperson said: “We are speaking directly to the resident and investigating this matter.

“Our engineers have inspected the line and there are no clips missing from the infrastructure.”
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alxndr

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A few thoughts, bearing in mind that I am not p-way:
  • The clip has broken, however I would generally expect to see a bit of shine from a freshly broken piece of metal
  • Clips can work loose, but they generally remain in the very near vicinity of the housing rather than flying all over the place
  • If all the clips are in place nearby, as NR say they are, then the clip must have come from somewhere
  • Things left on the head of the rail have a tendency to fly with some force—could this have been placed on the head of the rail?
 
PaxVobiscum

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alxndr said:
A few thoughts, bearing in mind that I am not p-way:
  • The clip has broken, however I would generally expect to see a bit of shine from a freshly broken piece of metal
  • Clips can work loose, but they generally remain in the very near vicinity of the housing rather than flying all over the place
  • If all the clips are in place nearby, as NR say they are, then the clip must have come from somewhere
  • Things left on the head of the rail have a tendency to fly with some force—could this have been placed on the head of the rail?
Click to expand...
That seems all correct to me.

I am not railway staff, but I do possess one Pandrol clip (found on the ground some metres away from a local Network Rail access point) which I use as a paperweight. I made the decision to take it in to custody to avoid the (distinct) possibility of it being chucked at a passing car or through somebody’s window.
At 0.601Kg it is a heavy little blighter and could easily penetrate a double glazed window if travelling at a reasonable velocity.
 
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route:oxford

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PaxVobiscum said:
That seems all correct to me.

I am not railway staff, but I do possess one Pandrol clip (found on the ground some metres away from a local Network Rail access point) which I use as a paperweight. I made the decision to take it in to custody to avoid the (distinct) possibility of it being chucked at a passing car or through somebody’s window.
At 0.601Kg it is a heavy little blighter and could easily penetrate a double glazed window if travelling at a reasonable velocity.
Click to expand...

Up to a reasonable mass, isn't it *where* the object strikes a double glazed window that matters most rather than how heavy it is? In my head I've got it as something like a fifth of the length along, followed by a fifth of the height up from any corner?
 
Spartacus

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Half a kilo of metal with pointy bits could very easily be thrown through someone's double glazing, I really can't see there being any reasonable possibility that this has just pinged off the track through her window. The only possible culpability might be that it could be a broken one that's just been lobbed into the cess by the PW to save the effort of carting it back to the van at some point and that where the local scrotes have found it.
 
Peter C

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I don't work on the railway, but surely if these clips came flying off the track we would have done something about them long ago? Also, how does a clip just work itself loose from the track? Magic?

-Peter
 
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I was once working a service into Bradford Forster Square and walking down the platform the conductor and I heard a ping and a bang, we looked around, mainly at the train we just brought in, and saw a pandrol clip rocking back and forth on the edge of an opposite platform! so yeah it happens.

Its a Pway task to walk up along the line hammering back in any that have worked loose from vibration/movement or trains passing over.
 
Flying Snail

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Most of the time the correct answer is the obvious one, in the case of an object flying through a house window the obvious cause is it being thrown by a thug.

The chances of part of a clip managing to break with such force that it travelled that far, hit a window and still have the energy to penetrate a double glazed panel is astronomically low. The hysterical nonsense in the article about the householder keeping their children from the room in case it happens again is laughably stupid unless it was in fact a deliberate act by a local troublemaker.
 
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looking at the picture it has certainly snapped and not worked loose. Spring steel has tendency to brittleness if not made or heat-treated correctly. You see lots of bits of lorry leaf-springs on the roads if you are going slow or on a bike. I wouldn't expect it to look bright anyway, as you are looking at a rough surface of metal grains.
I would either expect Pandrol to be asked to explain, or an independent metallurgical laboratory to be given the clip and asked if it was fit for purpose.
It may be that any Pandrol clip is at the limit of what can be asked of the metal, so occasional snaps are to be expected and the track patrolling is intended to be adequate to spot and replace them before there are too many to render the track unsafe...
 
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I don't believe this is an unusual occurrence, maybe rare, but I remember being told of a Pandrol clip pinging off and landing on the roof at Lovers walk, from what I'm told its a known failure mode, but probably better for someone from 'trackside' to make comment
 
Flying Snail

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AndrewE said:
looking at the picture it has certainly snapped and not worked loose. Spring steel has tendency to brittleness if not made or heat-treated correctly. You see lots of bits of lorry leaf-springs on the roads if you are going slow or on a bike.
I would either expect Pandrol to be asked to explain, or an independent metallurgical laboratory to be given the clip and asked if it was fit for purpose.
It may be that any Pandrol clip is at the limit of what can be asked of the metal, so occasional snaps are to be expected and the track patrolling is intended to be adequate to spot and replace them before there are too many to render the track unsafe...
Click to expand...

From the article, NR stated that none of the track was missing a clip so reasonable to suggest a clip that had already been removed from track and discarded.
 
47271

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Vandalism in Carsnootie, surely not?

I'm only half joking, I can't imagine many people who live in that town wanting to admit to themselves that this could've been caused by one of their neighbours.
 
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Looking at the picture in the article:
1. Sudden catastrophic failure post initial slow growing fatigue crack (over years)
2. The sudden failure wasn't recent as that has oxidised quite a bit before the photo was taken
 
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hwl said:
Looking at the picture in the article:
1. Sudden catastrophic failure post initial slow growing fatigue crack (over years)
2. The sudden failure wasn't recent as that has oxidised quite a bit before the photo was taken
Click to expand...
except that 1) from what we can see all the the broken surface looks grey (grain structure) rather than rusty - which would be brown, and
2 I don't think spring steel behaves like rail and a lot of other steels, in that a slow-growing crack is less likely, maybe improbable.
 
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AndrewE said:
except that 1) from what we can see all the the broken surface looks grey (grain structure) rather than rusty - which would be brown, and
2 I don't think spring steel behaves like rail and a lot of other steels.
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I'd suggest you have another look - there is circa 10% of surface are on the right hand side of the break where there is rust on the fatigued surface that started at the orange arrow and then a faster fatigue crack growth rate halo (green arrow) before catastrophic failure over most of the surface to the left of that.
upload_2019-8-26_21-8-40.png
 
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AndrewE

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OK, I couldn't enlarge it. Maybe that is the way that all steel fails, but possibly highly-stressed spring steel goes a lot more suddenly than other steels. As I said earlier, "[perhaps] occasional snaps are to be expected and the track patrolling is intended to be adequate to spot and replace them before there are too many to render the track unsafe..."
Sounds like it might have been a vandal-thrown clip that had been removed and dumped earlier (if there really were no missing clips in the area) but the fairly fresh grey metal does make you wonder.
 
DarloRich

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I love how we have so many metallurgical experts on this board. Superb. The thing is clearly broken but I suspect this was lobbed through the window by some local scroat who found it. ( as @Spartacus suggests)


Peter C said:
I don't work on the railway, but surely if these clips came flying off the track we would have done something about them long ago? Also, how does a clip just work itself loose from the track? Magic?
Click to expand...

Yes, via the magic of vibration caused by having many trains of several hundred tonnes thundering over it every day
 
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DarloRich said:
I love how we have so many metallurgical experts on this board. Superb.
Click to expand...
I find 99% of my engineering time devoted to other mech/ electrical /software these days though:smile: but nice to be able to dust off some rusty brain cells every so often!
 
DarloRich

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hwl said:
I find 99% of my engineering time devoted to other mech/ electrical /software these days though:smile: but nice to be able to dust off some rusty brain cells every so often!
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my engineering knowledge/technique tends to be percussive/audible ( whack it with a hammer and/or swear at it)
 
Peter C

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DarloRich said:
Yes, via the magic of vibration caused by having many trains of several hundred tonnes thundering over it every day
Click to expand...
I don't know the stretch of line on which the incident occurred at all, and I assumed it was a smaller branchline. I apologise for asking what seemed like a normal question.

-Peter
 
DerekC

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Flying Snail said:
The chances of part of a clip managing to break with such force that it travelled that far, hit a window and still have the energy to penetrate a double glazed panel is astronomically low. The hysterical nonsense in the article about the householder keeping their children from the room in case it happens again is laughably stupid
Click to expand...

So you have done the calculations, have you? You must have had the material spec and dimensions of the clip, its nearest plausible location to the window, exact dimensions of the layout, the lab report on the ciip, its failure mode and energy released on failure, the details of the double glazed panel ….. I don't think anyone trying to protect their children from a risk that hasn't been fully explained can be called "laughably stupid".
 
DarloRich

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Peter C said:
I don't know the stretch of line on which the incident occurred at all, and I assumed it was a smaller branchline. I apologise for asking what seemed like a normal question.
Click to expand...

they work lose over time and even slow speed will generate vibrations. That is why people have to walk the track & fix them occasionally and why the NMT looks at this kind of thing during its measurement runs.
 
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DerekC said:
So you have done the calculations, have you? You must have had the material spec and dimensions of the clip, its nearest plausible location to the window, exact dimensions of the layout, the lab report on the ciip, its failure mode and energy released on failure, the details of the double glazed panel ….. I don't think anyone trying to protect their children from a risk that hasn't been fully explained can be called "laughably stupid".
Click to expand...
I find it hard to believe that a clip would be able to ping off like a bullet (no calcuation, this is gut reaction based on an engineering degree and 30+ years on the railway, though not specific to track). Pandrols have been used in their millions since the 1960s and if this was a frequent occurrence then we would surely have heard of it already. If the break was some time previously as suggested then there would probably be no tension in it anyway, and if the break was what caused it to fly off then NR should have found the rest of the clip still attached to the sleeper or at least found one missing.

To me it's more likely that it had broken some time before, been replaced and tossed aside by a track worker, a vandal put it on the railhead and it was struck at high speed by the lifeguard or wheels of a passing train. If so the railway isn't totally to blame, although there should be more effort not to leave these potential missiles lying around.
 
Peter C

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DarloRich said:
they work lose over time and even slow speed will generate vibrations. That is why people have to walk the track & fix them occasionally and why the NMT looks at this kind of thing during its measurement runs.
Click to expand...
OK. Thanks.

-Peter
 
Flying Snail

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DerekC said:
So you have done the calculations, have you? You must have had the material spec and dimensions of the clip, its nearest plausible location to the window, exact dimensions of the layout, the lab report on the ciip, its failure mode and energy released on failure, the details of the double glazed panel ….. I don't think anyone trying to protect their children from a risk that hasn't been fully explained can be called "laughably stupid".
Click to expand...

Millions of people every day wait for trains, work or have offices and homes next to railway lines in close proximity to these clips, if the possibility of them endangering people by launching themselves projectile style was in any way probable they would have been removed from use long ago.

Once the "think of the children" cries are brought out along with the rest of the emotive rubbish in that article you know you are dealing with grade A bullsh*t. Yes it is ridiculously illogical and melodramatic to believe that for any reason other than being thrown by a human there is a chance of the same window getting broken twice by a self-propelled pandrol clip.

I can only assume that those here that continue to forward the theory the clip fired itself into the house are insinuating that the Network Rail engineers who stated that the local infrastructure was fully intact are liars. Maybe it's all a conspiracy, the great exploding pandrol clip cover-up.
 
Tetchytyke

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It got into her window somehow.

The options are a) it did work loose and ping off or b) vandals threw it/placed it on the railhead.

Either way, the fault really is with NR. Either it wasn't secured properly or it was left lying around by p-way staff for vandals to find.

It didn't get in her house by magic.

Flying Snail said:
Yes it is ridiculously illogical and melodramatic to believe that for any reason other than being thrown by a human there is a chance of the same window getting broken twice by a self-propelled pandrol clip.
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Is it? If a bit of p-way ended up in my baby's bedroom I'd think twice before using it again. Especially if NR can't explain how it got there.

I don't think this woman is being "melodramatic" in questioning how the p-way ended up inside her property and worrying it might happen again.
 
Flying Snail

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Arctic Troll said:
It got into her window somehow.

The options are a) it did work loose and ping off or b) vandals threw it/placed it on the railhead.

Either way, the fault really is with NR. Either it wasn't secured properly or it was left lying around by p-way staff for vandals to find.
Click to expand...

So it's NR's fault if a scumbag intentionally smashes someone's window? I guess if it had been a piece of ballast it'd be their fault for not having glued all the ballast down too.
 
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