Derailment near Grange Over Sands

[mbonwick]

Storm Desmond later in 2015 also really focussed minds as to how important the pumps are!

 

[randyrippley]

I expected there to be an internal drainage board for an area like this, but could find no trace of one. There was a consultation run by the Environment Agency in 2015 on their proposal for an IDN for South Cumbria, which would include the Winster catchment and much more. In it I found this explanation of the background:

The EA have a fixed budget, and a list of priorities for flood protection - houses, infrastructure, yes - but not agriculture, seen as a commercial activity able to pay for its own protection. So in the Lyth drainage area, they proposed withdrawing from paying for maintenance of pumps etc, and wanted to hand that over to the farmers (mainly). Obviously they felt a bit queasy about dumping a such a big bill on them, and tried to spread the costs over a much larger area. That (predictably) got a lot of objections from all those neighbouring areas, who didn't want to pay anything for no benefit to themselves.

Grange Town Council, for example, responded with:

So there is no drainage board to do anything; the EA are doing some maintenance work but are not likely to upgrade anything.

I'm sure there used to be an internal drainage board covering the Lyth and Winster - I can remember a business contact being in dispute with it around 20 years ago due to its failure to actually drain the local land

 

[30907]

The line will surely be shut longer than 2 weeks? Why don’t they run shuttle trains to Grange from barrow and then from Arnside to Lancaster. With a shuttle bus between

Because there is no sensible road route for the shuttle bus. Grange to Carnforth would work.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because there is no sensible road route for the shuttle bus. Grange to Carnforth would work.

There isn't a sensible road route for the shuttle bus even now . One reason the line is so popular is that the road routes are extremely tenuous.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

There isn't a sensible road route for the shuttle bus even now . One reason the line is so popular is that the road routes are extremely tenuous.

Great, I shall dread it tomorrow even more now then.

 

[Pinus contorta]

In the past when Fraser Eagle did the buses for engineering works, they tried running trains as far as Bare Lane on at least one occasion. And they have used Carnforth as the interchange in the past. There are issues with turning the vehicles round at some of the stations. Certainly Arnside and Silverdale are difficult to link in to the main A road network towards the Furness peninsula.

 

[Lloyds siding]

Network Rail do in fact manage the drainage of the area, so that article was misleading. In particular, they own and operate the tidal gates (sluice) at Arnside, the mouth of the Winster. Like all tidal gates, they can only work if "tidal locking" blocks the outflow for a short period at high tide. If the closure is too long, the river flow itself causes flooding.

This 2018 technical paper summarises the results of work commissioned by NR from AECOM, and is called "Managing legacy infrastructure into the future: the River Winster and Meathop Drain flood risk". I can't copy quotes from it, but it does talk about reopening the Seldom Seen culvert (i.e. it is blocked), and says that NR installed a small pump taking water "over the embankment", discharging "close to the Seldom Seen culvert". I think that must be what those pipes near the site of the collapse are for; they would be buried under the track.

There is, of course, a lot more to it, explained in the paper. Whatever you do the rivers, tides, and all that sand and silt will do their own thing in response. And as the man said, there is too much sand and silt in Morecambe Bay.

I know one of the authors of the technical paper, from a time when he was working in this area, but for another company....and it was a long, long time ago!
As the paper says:
'it is clear that the
most important issue is the natural process of sediment
movement in the estuary blocking the discharge of the
river at a fixed location.'
A few years ago I was dealing with some local surface water outfalls discharging into the Irish Sea (not in this area), accumulation of sand and silt was our problem too, and this is exacerbated by sea levels rising. As the sea level rises then so does the beach level, blocking off outfalls as it does so. The technical paper remarks that dredging downstream would provide a temporary fix, but long term maintenance to keep the channel clear would likely be unsustainable.
We excavated a channel across the beach allowing the culvert to empty, but after a few months the sand had returned, filled in the channel and blocked off the outfall again, such that it was invisible on the beach. I really don't know what the answer to these situations is: the sea level is rising and raising the beach level and the beaches are accumulating anyway, whereas the land is staying at the same level making land drainage a nightmare.

 

[Agent_Squash]

In the past when Fraser Eagle did the buses for engineering works, they tried running trains as far as Bare Lane on at least one occasion. And they have used Carnforth as the interchange in the past. There are issues with turning the vehicles round at some of the stations. Certainly Arnside and Silverdale are difficult to link in to the main A road network towards the Furness peninsula.

If the line is going to be out of action for a while, it may well be worth extending the trains currently terminating at Lancaster up to Windermere, and running the connections from Kendal.

At least it would get the passengers in roughly the right place, rather than a jaunt up the A6!

 

[scrapy]

If the line is going to be out of action for a while, it may well be worth extending the trains currently terminating at Lancaster up to Windermere, and running the connections from Kendal.

At least it would get the passengers in roughly the right place, rather than a jaunt up the A6

If the line is going to be out of action for a while, it may well be worth extending the trains currently terminating at Lancaster up to Windermere, and running the connections from Kendal.

At least it would get the passengers in roughly the right place, rather than a jaunt up the A6!

There is already a scheduled hourly shuttle on the Windermere branch. It's not possible to add another train in to do this without changing this schedule, which would inconvenience locals. This also doesn't automatically line up.with paths on the WCML either due to freight paths so they can't just be ran through and many of the services that normally run to Barrow are run by crew that don't sign to Oxenholme or Windermere.

 

[Agent_Squash]

There is already a scheduled hourly shuttle on the Windermere branch. It's not possible to add another train in to do this without changing this schedule, which would inconvenience locals. This also doesn't automatically line up.with paths on the WCML either due to freight paths so they can't just be ran through and many of the services that normally run to Barrow are run by crew that don't sign to Oxenholme or Windermere.

Without wondering too much off into speculative land - they use the same path south of Lancaster, and as far as I'm aware there isn't a separate freight path in the hours where it doesn't extend to Windermere.

There does need to be a solution other than send everyone up the M6 at some point - it's not going to be sustainable.

 

[Ben Anslow]

When they did Arnside viaduct, they ran fast from Carnforth to Grange. Arnside/Silverdale were served by a minibus. No viable facility for Arnside - Grange passengers.

If I remember correctly when this was done back when tpe had the line they actually had trains shuttling between arnside/lancaster and the airport

The line will surely be shut longer than 2 weeks? Why don’t they run shuttle trains to Grange from barrow and then from Arnside to Lancaster. With a shuttle bus between

I’m in agreement with this and have a shuttle between either Lancaster and Grange / carnforth and grange some people here saying issues with the road routes well TPE did it when the viaduct was closed for works some years ago. The real issue here is that was all planned well in advance and of course this was unexpected occurrence weather they’d be able to do it in the time frames debatable may not be feasible

 

[yorksrob]

Having something shuttling between Lancaster and Grange would seem sensible.

I note that during the Eden Brows works, services ran single track for a considerable distance between Appleby and Armathwaite. Surely something similar could be arranged for Carnforth - Grange.

 

[tpfx89]

Having something shuttling between Lancaster and Grange would seem sensible.

I note that during the Eden Brows works, services ran single track for a considerable distance between Appleby and Armathwaite. Surely something similar could be arranged for Carnforth - Grange.

If you're referring to running single line over the "unaffected" track between Arnside and Grange I'd be incredibly unconfident running anything over there at present looking at what's a few feet over from it!

 

[edwin_m]

If you're referring to running single line over the "unaffected" track between Arnside and Grange I'd be incredibly unconfident running anything over there at present looking at what's a few feet over from it!

That would depend on what the problem is and how well it is understood. On the Plessey Viaduct last year, single line operation was in force when the track bed, parapet and part of the spandrel on the other side had literally fallen into the valley. Comment on another thread suggests that one track remains open past the landslip at New Mills.

 

[yorksrob]

If you're referring to running single line over the "unaffected" track between Arnside and Grange I'd be incredibly unconfident running anything over there at present looking at what's a few feet over from it!

Even a shuttle to Arnside would be better than nothing if the section beyond is blocked.

 

[QueensCurve]

Looking at the locations of the Xovers, a shuttle train from Barrow to Ulverston should be possible.

 

[cuccir]

Looking at the locations of the Xovers, a shuttle train from Barrow to Ulverston should be possible.

It might, but there are local service buses which do that job pretty well, running every 20 minutes. However, there are normally a few of the Carlisle trains which run to Lancaster, I'm not sure why they can't terminate at Ulverston rather than Barrow to offer something of a service.

The big gaps that the railway line covers are Furness (Barrow-Ulverston) > Cark and Grange > Arnside and Beyond.

As far as I can see, the 'clever' fix (ignoring staffing, bus availability, costs, etc) would be to run:

• Lancaster to Arnside rail shuttle
• Bus service Lancaster (and maybe Carnforth) to Grange, Ulverston, Dalton and Barrow
• Minibus or just pay for taxis for people between Grange, Kents Bank and Cark
• Run those few Carlisle to Ulverston services, which covers Roose

In practice, by the time you've sorted all that, found coaches, published it, then for a two week closure you might just decide it's easier to just run a RRB through all the stations....

 

[zwk500]

Even a shuttle to Arnside would be better than nothing if the section beyond is blocked.

Lancaster to Arnside rail shuttle

No crossover, at Arnside or Silverdale, so you'd be running wrong road all the way to or from Carnforth (depending on which line you used), which will obviously factor into the safety considerations. As there are 2 AHB Level Crossings a shuttle running wrong-road may well require local control of the level crossings or some other emergency working protocol.

Looking at the locations of the Xovers, a shuttle train from Barrow to Ulverston should be possible.

Looking at the Signalling at Ulverston, it doesn't look like a cross-platform shunt from Up to Down is signalled. Making the move unsigalled isn't impossible (and my diagrams have a suggestion they might not be 100% accurate) but would certainly complicate things.

Looking at Grange though, the shunt back over the crossover there would appear to be available as long as it's permitted to approach the Section Signal under the current circumstances?

 

[QueensCurve]

No crossover, at Arnside or Silverdale, so you'd be running wrong road all the way to or from Carnforth (depending on which line you used), which will obviously factor into the safety considerations. As there are 2 AHB Level Crossings a shuttle running wrong-road may well require local control of the level crossings or some other emergency working protocol.

Looking at the Signalling at Ulverston, it doesn't look like a cross-platform shunt from Up to Down is signalled. Making the move unsigalled isn't impossible (and my diagrams have a suggestion they might not be 100% accurate) but would certainly complicate things.

Looking at Grange though, the shunt back over the crossover there would appear to be available as long as it's permitted to approach the Section Signal under the current circumstances?

Both of these should be possible albeit manpower intensive. You would certainly need someone to clip the switch rails at Ulverston There might be more difficulties at the other end since presumably machinary will have to access the derailment site.

 

[zwk500]

Both of these should be possible albeit manpower intensive. You would certainly need someone to clip the switch rails at Ulverston There might be more difficulties at the other end since presumably machinary will have to access the derailment site.

Possible but is it a reasonable allocation of resources? And then there's the efficiency of the resource use at Barrow, especially if mileage inspections came into it. Sending MOMs to Carnforth and Ulverston to be clipping points all day for the handful of trains isn't really a good use of time.

 

[Toby Atkinson]

Does anybody think it will be fixed at grange by 8th April as stated? Feels a bit ambitious looking at the work required

 

[PyrahnaRanger]

Does anybody think it will be fixed at grange by 8th April as stated? Feels a bit ambitious looking at the work required

Workington Bridge was supposedly not going to be completed until mid-April, but is back in service already, although with temporary speed restrictions I’m led to believe. I guess it depends what they find when they make a start.

 

[Toby Atkinson]

Courtesy of King - Furness Line group

 

[strawberryline]

I'm sure there used to be an internal drainage board covering the Lyth and Winster - I can remember a business contact being in dispute with it around 20 years ago due to its failure to actually drain the local land

There was talk of one being created but it didn't happen, AFAIK nothing has happened since 2019 and it's still the responsibility of the EA

Environment Agency extends Lyth Valley pumping stations scheme

Pumping stations managing water levels in a Cumbrian valley will continue to be operated by the Environment Agency while an alternative arrangement is agreed, landowners are told.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[a_c_skinner]

The BBC reporter on the spot is advising passengers to check if they should get a RRB or go via Carlisle. I suppose if you have a lot of time to spare...

 

[Winthorpe]

Courtesy of King - Furness Line group

Fantastic photo; thanks for posting it.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

The BBC reporter on the spot is advising passengers to check if they should get a RRB or go via Carlisle. I suppose if you have a lot of time to spare...

Which currently would actually be the quicker journey from Barrow-in-Furness if say to Carlisle? The Cumbrian Coast rail route via Whitehaven, or a rail replacement bus to Lancaster, and then North by rail along the WCML?

 

[syorksdeano]

Courtesy of King - Furness Line group

Have they moved the train closer to the wall when they have lifted it, or has it ended so close to the wall when it derailed?

 

[swt_passenger]

Have they moved the train closer to the wall when they have lifted it, or has it ended so close to the wall when it derailed?

It’s well over to the wall in the previous overhead photos, post #175 refers.

 

[KnobbyGB]

Courtesy of King - Furness Line group

And there in the second photo we can clearly see where the signal wires run and why they might have been severed during the incident. At that point, BOTH wires are hanging slack so I imagine the one that was previously still 'off' has been cut by the recovery workers.