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Broken Down Freight Train Near Bushey

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Deepgreen

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Seemingly major disruption all day with Southern's Milton Keynes trains cancelled throughout the day. Is there more to this "broken down freight train" than meets the eye?
 
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Oxfordblues

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The panel is showing "WAGN" on the Down Fast at Bushey. Is it perhaps immoveable or even derailed?
 

Zoidberg

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Problem Tweeted as a faulty brake with attempts being made to remove defective freight wagons.

From London Midland

#Bushey Update 12: Work continues to remove the defective freight wagons. We anticipate disruption during the evening peak to/from #Euston.
11:28am - 30 Mar 16

From London Euston

The cause of WCML delays at #Bushey is a faulty freight train brake. We're doing everything to resolve the issue. pic.twitter.com/XovBvwIuh7
12:17pm - 30 Mar 16

There is a pic linked to in that Tweet but I am not clever enough to reproduce it here. EDIT ... See post #6 below.
 
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Tracked

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this is it:
CeysXYpWsAAzgyw.jpg
:shock:
 

ChiefPlanner

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Looks like a skate job - (which means a very slow recovery of said wagon / set when it is fitted - 5 mph over switch and crossing moves etc) ......

That is one damaged wheel set ...
 

GB

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It was this mornings 0032 6X41 Dagenham - Garston car service. It got a little passed Bushey where it was stopped and examined and the damaged found. Luckly there were two locos on it so they were able to take 90% of the train away (very very late) and leave the damaged wagons there with the other loco.

However due to the cant of the rail it was not possible to fit the skates there so they had to remove as much of the scaling as possible before moving the wagons back to Bushey for the skates to be fitted later tonight.
 

LeylandLen

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Obviously its good that we , the 'customers ' , passengers do and can see what the problem is here , as opposed to the ' Broken down freight train' line which obviously could mean anything .As a 'customer ' paying my high fares, I would like to know how often wagons are checked for this problem.??
 

GB

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Bearing in mind this is still subject to investigation dragging brakes can happen on any stock at any time no matter how many pre-departure checks one does.
 

Class315

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Indeed a skate is due to be fitted on the wagon and move back to Wembley Yard at COT.
 

DarloRich

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it took the cognoscenti a while to pick this one up looking at the posted times ;)

Obviously its good that we , the 'customers ' , passengers do and can see what the problem is here , as opposed to the ' Broken down freight train' line which obviously could mean anything .As a 'customer ' paying my high fares, I would like to know how often wagons are checked for this problem.??

Do you think they just send trains out with no checks or observations? Each type of vehicle has a determined inspection and maintenance regime but a dragging brake can occur at almost anytime for all manner of reasons.

I am sure an investigation will get to the bottom of it, followed quickly by the delay minutes!
 

Parham Wood

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It does seem to have taken an awefully long time to resolve unless I have misunderstood the timings in the posts. I appreciate that the engineers may have to come from some distance to site, then find a skate cannot be fitted so need to find a portable generator to run power tools to clean the wheel up. Maybe there was more to the problem and of course safety is paramount. Anyone shed any light on this please as to me as a passenger on a modern railway such a long time to resolve is unacceptable?

What happens after these events does someone decide whether to hold an inquiry to find out why it took so long as there is potential for lessons to be learned or is the delay money just banded around? In the old days a report would go to the regional GM.
 

AndrewE

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a dragging brake can occur at almost anytime for all manner of reasons.

Perhaps I ought to be glad that most of the trains I travel on don't suffer dragging brakes, but I thought this problem had been sorted out several times since the invention of continuous brakes...

We shouldn't have an intensively-used 21st century network stitched up by what sounds like a basic technical failure.
The railway's problem is that the whole system (and all customers) get stuffed by almost any lack of attention to detail by any one of the thousands of people who have to "do it right." On the road network there are a million potential culprits and no single participant gets the blame; On the railway no-one really gets blamed but the system suffers a serious reputational blow every single time.
 

ComUtoR

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Perhaps I ought to be glad that most of the trains I travel on don't suffer dragging brakes, but I thought this problem had been sorted out several times since the invention of continuous brakes...

Are you sure. All units I drive can have dragging brakes. I would be very interested to know which units out there can't get a dragging brake.
 

najaB

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Perhaps I ought to be glad that most of the trains I travel on don't suffer dragging brakes, but I thought this problem had been sorted out several times since the invention of continuous brakes...
So, how does that work then?
 

AndrewE

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Are you sure. All units I drive can have dragging brakes. I would be very interested to know which units out there can't get a dragging brake.

Maybe it's because most of my journeys nowadays are on Pendolinos, a few Voyagers, LM EMUs on the WCML or EMUs and DMUs in the west midlands. However I can't recall being aware of a single problem with dragging brakes in over 40 yrs of train travel, even when locos were changed on every trip between Bristol and the electrified NW.
Maybe passenger information was so poor 20+ years ago that we weren't really aware of the causes of delays (note I'm not saying that delays or dragging brakes didn't happen .)
 

najaB

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Maybe it's because most of my journeys nowadays are on Pendolinos, a few Voyagers, LM EMUs on the WCML or EMUs and DMUs in the west midlands. However I can't recall being aware of a single problem with dragging brakes in over 40 yrs of train travel
Here's one for you.
 

AndrewE

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So, how does that work then?
Different companies had differing levels of vacuum in the braking system. So when trains crossed regional boundaries there were incompatibilities and sometimes the brakes didn't come on if the new loco or a part of the train was "set" to a different level
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_brake
hints at it, and I think that several more recent enquiries have concluded that the root causes of accidents have been down to vehicles in a train not responding appropriately because of similar mis-matches in the air-braked wagon brake settings...
 

ComUtoR

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Maybe it's because most of my journeys nowadays are on Pendolinos, a few Voyagers, LM EMUs on the WCML or EMUs and DMUs in the west midlands.

So none of those units can have a dragging brake ?

I'm confused. That wiki article stts that Vacuum brakes are obsolete.
 
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AndrewE

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No. How does a continuous brake system make a dragging brake impossible - which is what your post implied.
Maybe the lessons of continuous brakes were learned. In which case it's a shame that the railway is still being let down by basic eqiupment failures now. Ever heard of engineering tolerances? or brake valves/regulators set up wrongly?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
If it was anything other than a hot brake we would've heard, I guarantee you that. A fire on a Voyager and nobody talked about it? Yeah, right!

no confirmation of the cause on that thread...
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
So none of those units can have a dragging
Just saying that in the last 20 years or so I can't remember a journey spoilt by brake problems. Maybe I've just been lucky, or maybe it's that dragging brakes are very rare in a railway that is remarkably reliable in the first place.

I will dig around for accident enquiries that put the cause down to dragging brakes.
 
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najaB

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In which case it's a shame that the railway is still being let down by basic eqiupment failures now.
Friction brakes will stick from time to time - they are mechanical devices that have to deal with huge temperature swings, in wet, dirty, dusty environments.

If you can come up with a design that you can guarantee won't stick then patent it - you'll be a millionaire overnight.
 

ComUtoR

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Just saying that in the last 20 years or so I can't remember a journey spoilt by brake problems. Maybe I've just been lucky, or maybe it's that dragging brakes are very rare in a railway that is remarkably reliable in the first place.

I will dig around for accident enquiries that put the cause down to dragging brakes.

There was a dragging brake in the first week I joined the railway. I've seen photos of dragging brakes that would absolutely shock you. (wheel-sets welded to the rail)

I thought they were pretty common.

I really would love to know if there were units where they weren't possible
 

AndrewE

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Friction brakes will stick from time to time - they are mechanical devices that have to deal with huge temperature swings, in wet, dirty, dusty environments.

If you can come up with a design that you can guarantee won't stick then patent it - you'll be a millionaire overnight.

Aren't they powered to come off as well as on (even if only by a spring return?)
Maybe I ought to patent a stronger spring.

Or maybe it doesn't happen very often and we're getting this out of perspective.
 
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