Complete Power Failure at Crewe

[eastdyke]

I am pleased that gas does not appear to have been involved.

Nonetheless condolences to those that may have been hurt.

 

[ole man]

I am pleased that gas does not appear to have been involved.

Nonetheless condolences to those that may have been hurt.

Gas was involved,the manholes down Nantwich road blew out of the road.
It was caused by a electrical surge which some how ignited gas.
National Grid are there now

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Gas was involved,the manholes down Nantwich road blew out of the road.
It was caused by a electrical surge which some how ignited gas.
National Grid are there now

Gas leaks do often seep and build up in manholes and similar. ( Here in Epsom two BT covers have been left open and coned off for the past two months (!) due to a smell of gas coming from them. This is in a road that has been repeatedly dug up to try to cure a persistent gas leak over the past few years. )

 

[eastdyke]

If gas was involved then a responsible person must have assessed this as 'sewer' gas.

If mains gas was involved then there are some very brave people around.

National Grid may be there in their capacity as the Electricity Supply Engineers?

 

[boing_uk]

National Grid will be there for the gas, not electricity. It doesn't sound like it is a very high voltage cable fault, probably on the medium voltage network, which for Birminghams DNO is Central Networks?

 

[andrewg70]

an update from the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-15101737

 

[NightatLaira]

sleeper is on time and expected to call right now... I'm slightly disappointed. I was looking forward to a Manchester drag

Hope the man and woman get better - can't be nice, burns and all..

 

[wintonian]

sleeper is on time and expected to call right now... I'm slightly disappointed. I was looking forward to a Manchester drag

Hope the man and woman get better - can't be nice, burns and all..

3 late at Crewe, and most other things seem back to normal train wise.

 

[davelew99]

I was caught up in this last night....

I normally catch the 22:23 train for Chester, at 22:20 Nantwich road was still closed off, the final train i could have boarded (and still made connections) would have been 22:48 to Lime St.

As a result i decided to make arrangements to stay overnight in Crewe, since there was no sign of when things would be ok again.

This morning i didn't think it'd be a problem to get a free ticket issued since there was no way i could have travelled last night and made it all the way home (as opposed to half way)

The woman in the ticket office at Crewe was quite rude and just said that the trains were running last night.

I decided to risk it on my existing off-peak day return, going via Chester.

Either the ATW guard didn't notice or wasn't fussed and stamped my ticket anyway and since i didn't have to leave the station at Chester and Merseyrail only do spot checks i was able to get back to Rock Ferry without issue.

Going up Nantwich road this morning there was a big hole which had been dug to allow re-joining of electricity cables.

We were having dinner last night and the lights slowly dimmed to very low (TV and DVD was still going though, got to love those switching PSUs!) and eventually complete cut, it came back on a few minutes later but clearly when going toward the station various sections were still going on and off.

We went on the National Rail site first which didn't say much - i didn't think to check twitter (why would i? it's not the official site of National Rail is it?) Nothing on BBC or Sky (either web or TV) and then i remembered to come here! - much more informative!

Question is, what would you have done if you had been stuck in this situation?

 

[John Webb]

Electrical faults on older cables usually occur at 'joint boxes' where two sections of cable are joined or a branch cable goes off. These boxes are filled with bituman to insulate the joint and keep out the damp.

If a faulty joint develops, the bituman is heated by the heat at the faulty joint, melts and eventually starts boiling off producing flammable vapour. This can travel through the ducting the cables run in. Eventually the joint fails, there is a large spark and the bituman vapour ignites/explodes wherever it has travelled to!

So it is a 'gas explosion' but it is entirely due to an electrical problem, hence the confusion that can arise when reporters with no scientific knowledge make their reports.

Modern cables use modern joint boxes filled with a setting resin. This gives much better protection to the joint (so it's less likely to fail) and if heated by a fault doesn't produce much flammable vapour.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Electrical faults on older cables usually occur at 'joint boxes' where two sections of cable are joined or a branch cable goes off. These boxes are filled with bitumen to insulate the joint and keep out the damp.

If a faulty joint develops, the bitumen is heated by the heat at the faulty joint, melts and eventually starts boiling off producing flammable vapour. This can travel through the ducting the cables run in. Eventually the joint fails, there is a large spark and the bitumen vapour ignites/explodes wherever it has travelled to!

So it is a 'gas explosion' but it is entirely due to an electrical problem, hence the confusion that can arise when reporters with no scientific knowledge make their reports.

Modern cables use modern joint boxes filled with a setting resin. This gives much better protection to the joint (so it's less likely to fail) and if heated by a fault doesn't produce much flammable vapour.

Thank you for this most detailed explanation, which is of help to the less technically-minded forum members.

Have there been any other recent occurrences of this, where bitumen filled boxes were involved ?

 

[ole man]

Electrical faults on older cables usually occur at 'joint boxes' where two sections of cable are joined or a branch cable goes off. These boxes are filled with bituman to insulate the joint and keep out the damp.

If a faulty joint develops, the bituman is heated by the heat at the faulty joint, melts and eventually starts boiling off producing flammable vapour. This can travel through the ducting the cables run in. Eventually the joint fails, there is a large spark and the bituman vapour ignites/explodes wherever it has travelled to!

So it is a 'gas explosion' but it is entirely due to an electrical problem, hence the confusion that can arise when reporters with no scientific knowledge make their reports.

Modern cables use modern joint boxes filled with a setting resin. This gives much better protection to the joint (so it's less likely to fail) and if heated by a fault doesn't produce much flammable vapour.

Another thank you for explaining how it happened.

I was working outside your signal box at St Albans as few weeks ago, looks good, has everything been kept the same?