I imagined that a Salisbury to WEstbury shuttle could solve a lot of forward travel requirements (to give one example). Similarly a Yeovil Jcn to Pen Mill one.
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Collision and derailment near Salisbury (Fisherton Tunnel) 31/10/21
- Thread starter Monty
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James Kevill
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Oh dear! That train on the left looks badly damaged, it is unlikely to be repaired after the accident. It would eventually be written off and to be scrapped
konstant
On Moderation
There are leaks from the local control panel showing exactly what has happened, have others seen these yet?
MaxB
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Reading a lot of this ill informed gossip worries me.
Elecman
Established Member
Please do not post them
Wilts Wanderer
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I imagine it might be possible to run trains between Salisbury and Westbury/Exeter once the situation permits, as the accident has blocked the other end of Salisbury station?
Elecman
Established Member
Correct
ScotRail158725
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That looks a lot worse than it probably was, remember the cab was cut away to free the driver hence why the whole driver side bodywork is missing
Quite surprising how many leaks theres been tonight.
It would certainly provide the answers and stop all the speculation. If it’s also “exactly what happened” then it will be exactly what will be in the RAIB report in a few months time and I see no difference between the two
king_walnut
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Where might one find these?
wiltshirebloke
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As the thread has said, and marked, let's keep speculation until an official statement is released !
konstant
On Moderation
I won’t be, more than my job is worth - but they’ll come to light in the report.
My uneducated guess not related to the above is two separate incidents and the Swiss cheese model has come in to play and the result is what we see tonight.
konstant
On Moderation
Factual information provided by the panel is not speculating. It’s just not public domain, that’s all.
Just a reminder of this previous warning from the moderation team. Some recent posts have gone a little too far and make unverified claims that could have serious consequences. Please do not speculate - we need to wait until the facts are known and released in the proper way.
If you say so. I am interpreting this as "I am fishing for information as I have read something on the internet".
grumpyoldman01
Member
This is something that puzzled me
According to RealTime Trains, 159102 was miles from the tunnel when the accident happened, and it is shown as a set in Stagecoach livery; it also shows the train which was said to be involved as having 159014 leading and is in SWT livery. But the image I've seen on tv seems to show the vehicle with the crumpled cab as being in Stagecoach livery
RTT also shows the passing time for the GWR service at Tunnel Junction, but the last recording point for the SWT service is Laverstock North Junction; does that mean there was a "failure" of some sort before the SWT reached Tunnel Junction?
Wilts Wanderer
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Thank God that everyone involved will ultimately be making it home safely, notwithstanding the injuries some have reportedly suffered. Considering the nature of the event (two passenger trains, collision in tunnel, at night) I would go as far as to say this is miraculous.
If it's leaked already and in the public domain I can't see how it will affect your job unless you are the leaker.
The NR report is already on here so not sure how a picture of the panel is any different.
Kite159
Veteran Member
RTT can be wrong when it comes to unit allocations, especially on a day where there has been issues on the network meaning units get swapped over or stepped up.
(For example RTT is currently quoting the 18:45 Waterloo - Andover service as 159012 + 158886, but in fact it was 159007 & 159001)
MarkWi72
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I’m just glad that there appears to be no serious injuries.
RTT isn’t an authoritative source of train running or unit allocation info. I’d take its output with a pinch of salt in the best of times, never mind in the aftermath of a serious incident on a severely disrupted day.
Because of major disruption today, RTT will be seldom accurate, with units being swapped /stepped up, diagrams cut and pasted in Genius.
As long as the people that need to know where the units are, know where the units are, there’s no sense in worrying about incorrect unit numbers.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Given that it's two DMUs I think we are massively lucky there was not a fire. That would have changed things hugely for the worse.
Nobody knows yet whether that is something that happened. However, we have had very heavy rain in the West Country over the last couple of days, so my initial thought seeing the location was it could be that or some kind of slip outside the tunnel, prompted by the weather. Whatever it is we will find out in due course.
Wilts Wanderer
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Amen to that. A fire in a tunnel is pretty much the nightmare situation - I remember asking a staff trainer what one should do in such a situation, and the answer was basically ‘grab those nearest to you and run.’
king_walnut
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The train in the tunnel according to the reports was only partially derailed. It should have still been activating the track circuit meaning it wouldn’t be possible to signal an additional train into the section. This one won’t be as simple as it seems.
Signal Head
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It wouldn’t necessarily 'break a stretcher bar', and if it did it wouldn't be 'to prevent a derailment', just a consequence of excessive mechanical stresses, not would the driver necessarily be aware that they had run through the points.
grumpyoldman01
Member
Thanks to those who posted answers to my question about RTT set allocations - I'd got the impression from something I'd read that it was taken from a "live" database and therefore I'd assumed it to be accurate
This was what I thought when I first heard about this too. Obviously we’ll have to wait and see as and when some clear corroborated information comes out but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the cause.
Clearly the passengers and crew involved in this have experienced a shocking incident and we have to be grateful that it wasn’t far worse because it looks like it could have been.
True, but infrastructure is supposed to be designed to be fool proof as it is accepted that humans make errors. This is why AWS/TPWS was brought about, for example.
I imagine that if a blank signal is found to be the cause of this, most members of the public would expect RAIB to change a regulation to minimise the risk of a blank signal causing an accident again in the future, especially given most members of the public would likely sympathise with the driver for not noticing a blank signal at night/within a tunnel.
I’m no engineer but solutions I can think of off the top of my head:
• Put big, reflective outlines around signals
• Have a battery back up on signals which powers a red light if it detects that the electricity is cut (similar to how most modern digital alarm clocks come with battery back up power which only kicks in in the event of a power cut).
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D365
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I am impressed that you can make conclusive engineering judgements from one photo alone.