Derailment in Ireland (Dun Laghoaire)

[F Great Eastern]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ire...pted-following-low-speed-derailment-1.3219838

Irish Rail has warned of “significant” ongoing disruption to train services in Dublin following a train derailment on Wednesday evening.

The “low speed” incident occurred to a 6.15pm Dart service near Dun Laoghaire, it said.

There are no reports of any injuries however many passengers had expressed frustration on social media that they had been kept on the train for a long period of time following the incident.

A spokeswoman said moves were quickly underway to address the situation but that resulting service disruption would be significant for the remainder of Wednesday night.

Irish Rail dispatched staff on site to enable travellers to disembark the train.
A subsequent statement said: “Customers onboard this services and services that are currently between Dun Laoghaire and Lansdowne Road will be detrained and walked back to the nearest Station by Iarnród Éireann staff.”

Iarnród Éireann, The Rail Accident Investigation Unti and the Commission for Rail Regulation are to investigate the incident. Passengers using the Rosslare service will require bus transfers.

Usual reports of people sitting on other trains for a long time that randomly stopped because nobody bothered to make an announcement. Even 45 minutes after the derailment nothing showed up on the Irish Rail website, just on twitter.

 

[duesselmartin]

Apparantly people evacuated themselves ??????

 

[F Great Eastern]

It wouldn't surprise me and wouldn't be the first time where people on a train that has suddenly stopped have heard nothing from the driver for ages so just took it into their own hands.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Further details now coming to light from user groups that the points at which derailment occured were subject to maintenance approx half an hour previously and a permenant fix was not able to be put in place so they were temporarily clamped.

Following the line reopening the first train to go through said points derailed.

 

[Groningen]

A better picture from Independent (as a/the source).

 

[F Great Eastern]

IE have had a very strained relationship with the Comission for Railway Regulation lately in relation to safety culture at the company and the CRR expressed their concerns as recently as last month;

https://www.crr.ie/press/2017/08/23/crr-concerned-about-safety-culture-in-iarnrod-eire/

The railway safety regulator has asked the Minister for Transport Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross, T.D., to strengthen the brief of the new Chair of Iarnród Éireann. This unprecedented step has been taken by the Commission for Railway Regulation as it publishes its annual report for 2016.

The annual report makes it clear that the CRR has reservations about the organisational culture in IÉ and the influence that it is having on safety culture, and has expressed them before.

The CRR has been keeping Minister Ross appraised of the situation. In particular, the CRR has drawn the Minister's attention to IÉ’s failure to act on the 2015 CRR recommendation that the Company should introduce formal procedures to ensure that the Safety Management System leads rather than lags the decision making process and that safety validation is carried out to inform decisions that may have an impact on safety or compliance with railway safety legislation.

Meanwhile Railusers.ie have put together what they feel the sequence of events was:
http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showpost.php?p=78780&postcount=7

Been able to put together the sequence from last night

1722 E926 Dun Laoghaire Howth was unable to depart due to a points issue at Dun Laoghaire

1645 E222 Howth Bray stops at Salthill in the platform, the next signal cannot be cleared as the points failure results in a fail safe condition

Between 1725-1800 efforts made to fix points fault, ultimately this appears to have resulted in use of the clip and scotch solution to clamp the points for the Bray direction (the 'normal' direction in jargon terms). The equipment cabinet in Dun Laoghaire storing the equipment is left open confirming the equipment was used.

1800 Howth Bray train at Salthill is departs and proceeds to Dun Laoghaire under caution, approx 1805 (not 1815 as Irish Rail claimed) this train derails at slow speed over the facing points which previously had been clamped, the train derails leftwards away from northbound trains.

The entire first carriage is derailed, and the front of the second coach, but it is only obvious the front of the first carriage is off the rails.

Approx. 1840 (train now 66 minutes late vs timetable) passengers in the second and fourth carriages start to leave the train onto the up track, after approx. 3 minutes these doors are closed, this is the first point staff are seen onboard the train

Approx 1845 passengers in the 6th coach start to exit via the side of the train, at an unknown time passengers in the 5th coach also open a door and start to exit over the wall to the former coal yard tramway

Controlled evacuation did not start until after 1900 and was complete by 1945.

A pregnant woman in the third coach required assistance and an ambulance arrived however it arrived at the front and not rear of station. Dublin Fire Brigade evacuated to booking office, where staff were unable to find a key (assuming the staff bathroom), 'casualty' seemed in good spirits

A second ambulance arrived, however no Irish Rail staff at the booking office area to take control and direct, passengers at booking office directed the ambulance crew and others to the incident train, due to an empty train in the northbound platform many initially headed that way instead of the incident train which was just out of view from the booking office

Despite the urgency to get folks evacuated a senior looking member of Irish Rail staff found the time to escort a camera crew from RTE to the train, even though they could have got a perfectly good camera angle from the street

Approx 2000 derailment team arrive to start work

By 2230, only the front of the train remains off the rails