5 Class 350s Flood Damaged

[800001]

Class 350s use pantographs, not third rail, I could understand if the third rail was submerged and it couldn't get a current. I don't believe what some posters are suggesting about the electrical traction equipment being damaged, this is all encased in steal or strengthened aluminium casing from seeing videos of the undercarriages. Aren't trains also coated in a special powder to be weather resistant and protect the vital components? Is it not a design floor that a train could be disabled by rain water?

The water was up to platform level, that completely covers in water the underneath of a train. It doesn’t matter how encased it is, water of that depth and in water for that length of period will get in to places it shouldn’t.

There is a difference between rain and been covered for a prolonged period in deep water!

Take a car, it’s drives in rain, but would you leave it in 3ft of water?

 

[Lewisham2221]

Aren't trains also coated in a special powder to be weather resistant and protect the vital components? Is it not a design floor that a train could be disabled by rain water?

There is a very significant difference between getting showered with water during rainfall and being (partially)submerged in water for several hours.

 

[Babybirdrobin]

Do we actually know how many 350s were damaged and if any 730s were damaged?

 

[Harpo]

I don't believe what some posters are suggesting about the electrical traction equipment being damaged, this is all encased in steal or strengthened aluminium casing from seeing videos of the undercarriages.

If the traction equipment is air-cooled, inlets and outlets will probably be below solebar level.

Aren't trains also coated in a special powder to be weather resistant and protect the vital components?

My car and its machinery are incredibly weather resistant too. But I doubt it would stay that way if I drove it into 3 feet* of water.

(*Almost a metre for younger readers)

 

[DarloRich]

I'm not suggesting they are incompetent just have a lack of contingency planning around a predictable and indeed predicted in advance event.

ok - lets hear your alternative.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There are a lot of short forms today, particularly on the Crewes. Oddly one long form too (one of the normally 4 car diagrams is 8, not quite sure how it's ended up swapped like that!)

Do we actually know 14 units are unusable? That's more than I think were parked in the station, and the actual depot is on high ground so won't have had anything damaged in it (unless they still can't get some units out because of infrastructure damage).

 

[Bikeman78]

Are you seriously telling me the sidings are called Riverside sidings? What phenomenon is known to happen to rivers during severe storms?

This is why I will never buy a house near a river. I'm sure it is lovely on a summer day sitting in the garden watching the water. Not so much when it is flowing through the house. It only needs to happen once and it's probably uninsurable.

Haha yes, I did think that it would be too high. I'm just baffled by the whole incident. I've never heard of a train being flooded! Tracks, yes, stations occasionally but never trains.

A pair of class 314s were caught in a flood at Glasgow Central low level. All six vehicles were submerged, some almost up to the ceiling. They were repaired after a few months.

 

[Kite159]

A pair of class 314s were caught in a flood at Glasgow Central low level. All six vehicles were submerged, some almost up to the ceiling. They were repaired after a few months.

However 314s (and that 156) are a bit more 'basic' than 350s. Less computers & other electronic parts

 

[Class15]

Do we actually know how many 350s were damaged and if any 730s were damaged?

From what I have heard from a usually reliable source, 14 350s and 0 730s.

 

[DJH1971]

They will need to get a move on with the 730/2's even more now

 

[Helvellyn]

If the flood had been that high and the doors that well sealed, the trains would have gaily floated off down the Nene towards Peterborough!

What, you haven't heard of the scheme to re-open Northampton-Peterborough with bi-mode (train/boat) units?

 

[87015]

From what I have heard from a usually reliable source, 14 350s and 0 730s.

A pretty wild claim given what occured last week movement wise and from the published photos. Where were the 14x350 - Riverside photo as above shows 730s in there.

 

[Class15]

A pretty wild claim given what occured last week movement wise and from the published photos. Where were the 14x350 - Riverside photo as above shows 730s in there.

Don’t take it as fact - am only telling you what I have heard. Very happy to be proved wrong!

 

[Bikeman78]

Drainage system is a big problem everywhere these days it's either inadequate for the level of water or it's not been cleaned!

Greenway Road in Cardiff floods every time there is fairly heavy rain. About 75% of the gullies are full of silt up to street level. The few that work are quickly clogged with leaves. Once the rain stopped last Sunday, I wandered down in my wellies and scraped the leaves off the grates of the drains I knew to be working. It went from about six inches deep over 200 yards to completely clear in around 30 minutes. If all the gullies had been working in the first place, it probably wouldn't flood.

 

[AndrewE]

Greenway Road in Cardiff floods every time there is fairly heavy rain. About 75% of the gullies are full of silt up to street level. The few that work are quickly clogged with leaves. Once the rain stopped last Sunday, I wandered down in my wellies and scraped the leaves off the grates of the drains I knew to be working. It went from about six inches deep over 200 yards to completely clear in around 30 minutes. If all the gullies had been working in the first place, it probably wouldn't flood.

You are lucky that any of the gullies work at all. Around here the roads have been swept so infrequently that almost all of them are silted up to road level, which means tha the u-bends are also concreted up with no chance of ever being cleared, even if they had the resources to dig out the gulleys ("catch-pits" in other useage.)

 

[aar0]

Southampton station flooded about a decade ago, some sleuthing revealed a culverted river flowing directly underneath the station, dated to the Southern Railway’s Dock building (Southampton Central originally being on the sea shore). About 2 miles from the station the 9ft diameter culvert empties into the sea, but now several metres below high tide, so it is fitted with a non return valve, and connected to the same pumps as emptied the King George dry dock. The original 1930s pumps have to be manually turned on and off, and for whatever reason no one did this, so the Rollsbrook filled its culvert, and the first porous surface upstream of the sea is the ballast under the tracks at Southampton Central.

I don’t imagine the situation is as complicated here but it shows the possible complexity!

 

[bramling]

You are lucky that any of the gullies work at all. Around here the roads have been swept so infrequently that almost all of them are silted up to road level, which means tha the u-bends are also concreted up with no chance of ever being cleared, even if they had the resources to dig out the gulleys ("catch-pits" in other useage.)

Same where I am. And to add to things, the council don’t seem to manage tree growth round here, so every year the amount of leaf-fall increases. Any request to do anything is met with “sorry but we don’t have the budget”.

 

[Bletchleyite]

WMT have posted a video on Facebook this morning (sorry, not sure how I'd embed or quote something like that!) which says that 5, not 14, units have been seriously damaged by flooding and will be out of service long term, and that they are looking at contingency plans (though I'm not sure what those might be).

 

[87015]

WMT have posted a video on Facebook this morning (sorry, not sure how I'd embed or quote something like that!) which says that 5, not 14, units have been seriously damaged by flooding and will be out of service long term, and that they are looking at contingency plans (though I'm not sure what those might be).

Look at RTT for next week

 

[Bletchleyite]

Look at RTT for next week

Looks pretty normal to me. There's VAR against some of the Birminghams but they don't look different from the norm. Surely 5 units is just going to mean short forms until they can get some 730/2s in service or bring back some of the off lease 350/2s?

 

[Strathclyder]

There was also a 314 submerged almost up to cantrail level in one of the sub-surface Glasgow stations back in the 1990s (?).

Two 314s (208 and 212) were caught in that deluge (December 1994 when the River Kelvin burst it's banks at Kelvinbridge and water surged down the old Maryhill Central line tunnels to Exhibition Centre; was a near disaster), which closed the line through Glasgow Central Low Level for nearly a year. Water was up to the destination display at one end at the height of the floods as you say; severe damage was obviously done to both units. Not sure how long they were out of action for (203 was still out of use at the time pending it's return with the rebuilt ex-507 motor vehicle), but both did eventually return to service.

There was a 156 in Scotland l seem to recall.

That was 156478 as mentioned. Ran into floodwater somewhere on the GSW in late 2014, water was up to the door sills and ended up as an insurance writeoff as a result. Brodies then took it on, rebuilt/repaired it and leased it back to ScotRail (if I recall rightly; can't remember the specifics now).

 

[D365]

That was 156478 as mentioned. Ran into floodwater somewhere on the GSW in late 2014, water was up to the door sills and ended up as an insurance writeoff as a result. Brodies then took it on, rebuilt/repaired it and leased it back to ScotRail (if I recall rightly; can't remember the specifics now).

OT, but I believe 156478 is to be re-leased to Northern.

 

[boxerdog]

WMT have posted a video on Facebook this morning (sorry, not sure how I'd embed or quote something like that!) which says that 5, not 14, units have been seriously damaged by flooding and will be out of service long term, and that they are looking at contingency plans (though I'm not sure what those might be).

I hate to point out my post #22. The relevant information was there since Sunday. I'm unsure if people actually read the forum posts or just like to vent and bash the railway......

 

[Wyrleybart]

There are a lot of short forms today, particularly on the Crewes. Oddly one long form too (one of the normally 4 car diagrams is 8, not quite sure how it's ended up swapped like that!)

Do we actually know 14 units are unusable? That's more than I think were parked in the station, and the actual depot is on high ground so won't have had anything damaged in it (unless they still can't get some units out because of infrastructure damage).

There was a Green Signals video interviewing someone from LNwR on the platform at Northampton and I am pretty sure some drone footage showed a load of 350s parked in the riverside sidings

Look at 5:46

EDIT. The engineer mentioned that 5 units were trapped in the sidings and 2 in the platforms. That makes 7 out of 14 !!!!

 

[boxerdog]

There was a Green Signals video interviewing someone from LNwR on the platform at Northampton and I am pretty sure some drone footage showed a load of 350s parked in the riverside sidings

Look at 5:46

Again, post #22, the information was there since Sunday

 

[modernrail]

I thought the NR chap said 2 units damaged in the video but maybe they were doubled up? Still doesn’t make 5 but anyway.

Good to hear the questions of predictability and mitigation asked in the video. Hopefully we get better at getting units out of harms way. Won’t be as easy for all the fixed infrastructure of course, lacking in wheels as it tends to be.

 

[12LDA28C]

Do we actually know how many 350s were damaged and if any 730s were damaged?

Apparently 7 x 350s and 3 x 730s suffered significant damage.

That's right, and Jimmy's End flooding was almost annual back to my parents' memory before the war. Probably since it was built.

The whole of Jimmy's End is pretty level and what's odd is this. The track in the station is 2 or 3 metres above that, so you might expect for floodwater levels that reach the tracks then in Jimmy's End houses would have been submerged by that amount, and 3 metres would be up to first floor level. But I looked around this afternoon and there doesn't seem to me to be any flood damage. In the 1990s big flood, when houses had been under about 1m of water, walking round there were many signs - wet carpets and furniture in the street, all the windows and doors open, dehumidifiers, damaged cars, 'tide mark'. But none of that today. Indeed, the on-street electric vehicles charging points alongside Victoria park are still working, and the little sub-station serving them has louvres about 6" above ground.

I did take photos to try to illustrate this and post them here, but it's difficult to illustrate levels in a 2d photo.

My theory is that the flooding of the station was not caused by the river rising (I estimate that a rise of 4 metres would be needed for that) but some drainage problem at the station preventing the rainfall from running away.

Rumours circulating that control of a dam was the cause of the river bursting its banks leading to the flooding. I’m sure the investigation will get to the truth.

 

[boxerdog]

Apparently 7 x 350s and 3 x 730s suffered significant damage.



Rumours circulating that control of a dam was the cause of the river bursting its banks leading to the flooding. I’m sure the investigation will get to the truth.

Hate to say it again, see post #22

 

[87015]

Hate to say it again, see post #22

Which appears to be an early picture superceded by events, as all the units out the Riverside sidings were moved under own power a week ago and have been in passenger traffic this week.

 

[boxerdog]

Which appears to be an early picture superceded by events, as all the units out the Riverside sidings were moved under own power a week ago and have been in passenger traffic this week.

The units that I was on about were the ones in platform 4 & 5 as stated in my post