Five inch gap in track on East Coast mainline

[WCMLaddict]

RMT today released a shocking picture which shows 5 inches of rail head crumbled away to nothing leaving a potentially lethal gap in the track on the InterCity East Coast Mainline at Colton Junction just south of York where normal running speeds at 125mph. The picture was taken at the beginning of last week.

The original crack had been identified on inspection and painted blue to mark it down for repair or replacement. However, due to cuts it took FOUR DAYS to replace in which time a crack had become a five inch gap, leaving trains, passengers and staff at risk of a serious and potentially lethal incident. A train could have derailed, jumped the tracks and collided with an on-coming service.

http://www.rmt.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=166432

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is pretty serious ...

 

[transmanche]

Although obviously at a much lower speed, I was surprised at how much of a gap was needed before a train would actually derail in these WWII experiments in railway line sabotage.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'm going to need a bit more serious of a source than an RMT report that reads like it was from the Daily Mail...

 

[Harlesden]

Surely RMT would not risk serious and prohibitively costly legal action in terms of an inaccurate article/picture. The government itself keeps secrets from us, why not NR. The text of the article appears intelligently written without a trace of hysteria.
How much more serious a source do you need than the officially recognised organisation legitimately representing the brave men and women required to drive trains over NR's poorly maintained track.

 

[transmanche]

the brave men and women required to drive trains over NR's poorly maintained track.

And as the sound of the Dambuster's Theme fades away in the distance... :roll:

 

[Pumbaa]

There's a second cracked rail found today in Pboro area (I think).

This one from last week caused a few stirs.

 

[GB]

Strange. Looking back one month I cannot seem to find any log entries for what the RMT claim.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

There's a second cracked rail found today in Pboro area (I think).

This one from last week caused a few stirs.

Up main, Holme level crossing

 

[O L Leigh]

Looks like another media non-story. You can clearly see in the photo that the break has been clamped, so it is in the process of being dealt with. Also, a break like that would require a SEVERE speed restriction and possibly even closure of the line until it has been repaired. The linespeed might normally be 125mph, but there is no way that anyone is going to permit speeds anywhere near that until the rail has been replaced.

O L Leigh

 

[Wyvern]

I cant make sense of that picture. It doesnt download completely but it looks likeva sawn end,

EDIT: O.Leigh beat me to it.

 

[507 001]

Doesn't look anywhere near five inches to me!

 

[O L Leigh]

It may have had a crack in it for a few days, but a crack in itself is not necessarily dangerous. It had been identified and marked for attention and may have even been subject to a speed restriction. However, a chunk missing like that is definately going to be noticed. The driver of the first train over that will have heard one hell of a bang, assuming he hadn't already spotted it visually on approach. Besides, I honestly don't believe that a gap like that appears gradually over a period of time. That looks like a break at a joint where one end has snapped off suddenly, possibly along the line of the original crack.

What alarms me a bit more is that the RMT are calling into question the professionalism of their own members. As a driver I wouldn't know what constitutes a dangerous crack, but my orange friends down there on the ballast know. They will have assessed the defect and taken the requisite steps.

O L Leigh

 

[D6975]

A crack similar to that one was reported by a driver when I was spending a day at Tamworth many moons ago. The damaged track was right at the end of the Northbound platform (HL).
The line was closed immediately. A maintenance gang arrived within the hour and trains were running again within 3 hours of the driver first noticing it.
How things change...

 

[Jonny]

What alarms me a bit more is that the RMT are calling into question the professionalism of their own members. As a driver I wouldn't know what constitutes a dangerous crack, but my orange friends down there on the ballast know. They will have assessed the defect and taken the requisite steps.

O L Leigh

Mind you, IIRC most drivers are with ASLEF rather than RMT, and coming back to the OP's article I see that the RMT seem to be hell-bent on blaming cuts for everything; why does the phrase 'political capital' spring to mind
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I cant make sense of that picture. It doesnt download completely but it looks likeva sawn end,

EDIT: O.Leigh beat me to it.

Maybe it's a metal fatigue crack? they tend to look like sawn ends... only sharper.

 

[Nick W]

It is indeed consistent with fatigue failure. There appears to be have been an existing (insulated?) joint towards the left of the picture, and I would presume that the usual direction of travel from left to right.

I suspect that the joint will have been resulted in train wheels creating a large amount of force on the track at the point as each wheel transitions from one rail to another. The resulting cycling of the forces through each wheel will have resulted in very small microcracks from the in top of the rail growing. Over time, one of the cracks will have grown more than others and hence the resulting force concentration around the crack will have caused it to grow larger.

Eventually the crack will have grown to the point of being as large as the railhead itself (indeed looking like a saw mark), after which ductile failure would have occurred, resulting in the "rip like" markings visible in the picture. I suspect the whole section of rail snapped off at this point. I imagine it could well have still been lying in the same position, however, and was then pulled out by hand for the photo.

This failure mechanism is well known, and given information about the trains and rails and the existing size of of the track, Network Rail could have calculated how many train wheel loads it would take to fracture the rail. I'm amazed they didn't take further action, and slow down trains to 10-20mph!

Here's another picture of a similar kind of crack:

Here it appears that the crack has started from the bolt hole instead of the top of the rail however.

 

[Wyvern]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-20577690

I have to say the BBC report is much better than the report on the RMT's site. Plus you can see the whole of the image.

 

[swt_passenger]

Network Rail have responded, with dates and times etc...

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.c...nse-to-picture-of-broken-rail-on-social-media

 

[bishdunster]

Looks like a classic star fracture, eminating from the fishbolt hole, just like the one attributed to the Hither Green accident in the late 1960's, which sadly claimed 49 lives

 

[GB]

RMT talking nonsense? I don't believe it!:roll:

 

[LE Greys]

Up main, Holme level crossing

So that's what was going on! It held me up for 20 minutes going home from Sandy today.

There have been a few sharp comments in various sources (particularly Lord Berkeley in Railway Magazine) about rough rides on the ECML recently. So is this more widespread?

 

[GB]

I imagine the recent very cold weather has something to do with it.

 

[eastdyke]

I imagine the recent very cold weather has something to do with it.

Cold weather - rail movement.
Wet weather - ground movement

The 2 together will mean higher risk.

 

[Ploughman]

Not exceptionally cold, rails move at all temperatures and rails break all year round all over the country.
This failure looks like it was at an IBJ with the insulating T piece visible.
If it was an unusual type of break I would expect that a section of the rail will be cut out and sent for analysis to determine any fault in the rail itself.

 

[Nick W]

Rachel Lowe, from Network Rail, said a minor defect in the rail was identified in an inspection on 12 November, and again on 21 November, but there was "no visible crack in the rail at all and it was managing within normal standards".

...

She said: "The rail deteriorated and that was identified by the train driver just after 12:00 GMT on 28 November, and we immediately stopped any trains from travelling over that track."

This is gross negligence! The reason why the track is inspected for hairline cracks is because fatigue failure is catastrophic. It's not acceptable to ignore a known defect until it is clearly visible to the naked eye.

Ms Lowe said: "From the evidence in front of us we are confident that nothing had gone over [the gap]... If a train had gone over it the edges would have been ground down, but as you can see in the picture the edges are sharp.

Irrelevant - the difference between life and death could have been the difference between the direction of the first train after it finally fracture (though I thought have thought that would have almost certainly happened under a train anyway).

Ms Lowe added: "Safety issues are never ever going to be compromised in the name of cutting costs."

Because they clearly already have been.

 

[GB]

This is gross negligence! The reason why the track is inspected for hairline cracks is because fatigue failure is catastrophic. It's not acceptable to ignore a known defect until it is clearly visible to the naked eye.

Please:roll:

Defects are not "ignored". The initial fault will have been assessed by competent persons and the best course of action decided.

 

[Trog]

Please:roll:

Defects are not "ignored". The initial fault will have been assessed by competent persons and the best course of action decided.

I agree, the RMT and some others on here are talking about 3' above the ground and behind themselves.

 

[Nick W]

Please:roll:

Defects are not "ignored". The initial fault will have been assessed by competent persons and the best course of action decided.

Do you really think it's acceptable for Network Rail to allow their rails to fracture?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_(material)

 

[Trog]

Learn enough about rail, that what you say is worth listening to then come back.


Just a thought for background, broken rails are currently at an all time record low level.

I wonder what the RMT are trying to achieve, running a negative scare story on something that is actually a success, and where the testing data that the decisions were based on were probably produced by one of their own members.

 

[Bald Rick]

This is gross negligence! The reason why the track is inspected for hairline cracks is because fatigue failure is catastrophic. It's not acceptable to ignore a known defect until it is clearly visible to the naked eye.

Irrelevant - the difference between life and death could have been the difference between the direction of the first train after it finally fracture (though I thought have thought that would have almost certainly happened under a train anyway).

Because they clearly already have been.

Presumably you are not conversant with NR/L2/TRK/001, Inspection of Maintenance and Permanent Way; if you were you would perhaps be better informed in your judgement.

Broken rails are at an all time low, due to improved management of track maintenance as per the above standard. The last derailment on the national network caused by a broken rail on plain line passenger track was October 2000 at a place called Hatfield.

 

[jon91]

Sounds like NR were going through correct procedures and that the rail deteriorated inbetween inspections to me. I'd also think that the increased number of wheelflats at this time of year would have contributed to the rail failing in the manner seen.

Yes, RCF is obviously an issue and always will be but Network Rail can't just be expected to replace a section of track because of the detection of a minor defect, which in this case went downhill faster than predicted.

Just what Crow is wibbling on about is beyond me...

 

[transmanche]

Well, as a layman passenger, it seems to me that the system worked. Fault scheduled for repair, fault deteriorated faster than expected, driver reports broken rail, broken track isolated and fixed within eight hours.