Liverpool Disruption 28 Feb 2017 - RAIB report released 30/11/17

[fowler9]

If the area around Edge Hill station is considered a bad part of Liverpool I dread to think of what you'd think of the rest of the city! There are some very dodgy parts of Liverpool but that isn't one of them.

Edge Hill station is convenient for a lot of the suburban residential areas on this side of the city and indeed for the Universities, especially while nothing is calling at Wavertree Tech Park. I'm surprised more trains aren't continuing on there from South Parkway, to be honest.

Yeah, its not the prettiest part of town but you don't have to walk far to get an 86 bus, or a prostitute. Ha ha. I think it looks more threatening than it actually is.

 

[fowler9]

Edge Hill isn't the most pleasant part of Liverpool - safe during daylight, but I would hesitate to go outside the station alone at night. One bus route (26/27 circular) stops near the station. For other buses, it is about 5 minutes walk to stops in Picton Road or Smithdown Road.

Mate I'm a physical coward but I feel safer there than in most city centres of a Saturday night.

 

[LeylandLen]

Looking at various overhead pics on previous pages here , I just wonder ho safe and secure the rest of the wall is on that side and on the opposite side.
I too have traveled into / out of Liverpool LS many times and have wondered about how safe it is.

 

[Bevan Price]

If the area around Edge Hill station is considered a bad part of Liverpool I dread to think of what you'd think of the rest of the city! There are some very dodgy parts of Liverpool but that isn't one of them.

Edge Hill station is convenient for a lot of the suburban residential areas on this side of the city and indeed for the Universities, especially while nothing is calling at Wavertree Tech Park. I'm surprised more trains aren't continuing on there from South Parkway, to be honest.

Most cities have some dodgy areas where I would not want to be alone at night. The thing that makes me a bit uneasy at Edge Hill is that apart from one row of newish houses, they have done nothing to redevelop the areas once nearly filled with terraced housing, etc.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In December there were 2 crimes reported in Edge Hill area, one for shoplifting and one for ASB. Three streets away someone reported criminal damage. Two more streets away someone reported a bike theft.

It might look a bit of a dump, but unsafe??

Often crime against the person doesn't occur in "rough" areas because the people living there are often not well off and don't have an awful lot to nick. And there's the old adage that you don't, err, defecate on your own doorstep.

 

[Jonfun]

The problem with doing that is, okay, you "improve" the area, but you also price the residents out of their streets and create areas of even greater deprivation. Certainly in my street - typical two bedroom mid-terraces - it's mostly elderly people on limited incomes. If you redeveloped the area and brought in more modern housing you may well increase the proportion of affluent residents but at the expense of forcing those who can't afford it all into a new slum - or worse.

 

[greatkingrat]

It is on Platform 4 because the Preston services go in and out of the same end of it. I was also there when a Preston service accidentally got sent to platform 1 and managed to go back out the same way to get back to Platform 4.

The Preston train is coming from the Lime Street direction though. You can reverse Lime St - LS Parkway - Lime St in any of platforms 1, 3 or 4, however it is not possible to reverse from the Runcorn direction without having to shunt from one platform to the other.

 

[mikemcniven]

BBC North West Today reporting the RMT saying a train was seconds away from hitting the debris, which Northern have said a Manchester Airport to Liverpool Lime Street service did have to hit the emergency breaks

 

[Bald Rick]

BBC North West Today reporting the RMT saying a train was seconds away from hitting the debris, which Northern have said a Manchester Airport to Liverpool Lime Street service did have to hit the emergency breaks

The same union organiser is saying that the train would have derailed (which is likely) and that 'there would have been fatalities' which is a possibility, but far from certain. There have been plenty of derailments at speed that have not led to fatalities, or even injury. And in any event we'll never know. So why the scaremongering?

 

[Moonshot]

BBC North West Today reporting the RMT saying a train was seconds away from hitting the debris, which Northern have said a Manchester Airport to Liverpool Lime Street service did have to hit the emergency breaks

Hitting the emergency brakes for an obstruction is not uncommon on a day to day basis, its happened numerous times on trains that I have been working over the last few years.

 

[Camden]

I noticed the BBC article says the train was travelling at 50mph. I would have thought that should be 5mph?

 

[Moonshot]

I noticed the BBC article says the train was travelling at 50mph. I would have thought that should be 5mph?

It certainly isnt that speed.....its pretty much stop start all the way from Edge Hill into Lime Street itself.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It certainly isnt that speed.....its pretty much stop start all the way from Edge Hill into Lime Street itself.

The line speed in the cutting is 30mph, except on the Up Slow (towards Huyton, the nearest to the damaged wall) which is 40mph after the Lime St throat.

 

[gavin]

RMT saying the damage is "so severe that they (the 4 lines) could be out of action for a month"

"The union said it was thanks to the actions of train guards that travellers were evacuated safely – and warned of the “potentially lethal consequences” had the trains been driver-only."

http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/tra...th-tonnes-of-rubble-says-union-11364161103282

 

[47271]

Here's the BBC story for reference. Knowing the approach to Lime Street very well, and how slow it is, I was slightly taken aback by the claims of '50mph' and 'fatalities'. I'm not saying that it wouldn't have been a very nasty incident, and people could have been killed, but to exaggerate the likely speed to that extent seems a bit odd.

He may have been quoted out of context, but neither does he give any credit to train crews - in particular guards - for safe evacuations.

Liverpool Lime Street wall collapse: Train 'almost hit debris'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-39146773

A train carrying 150 passengers was "seconds away" from crashing into a huge pile of debris, a union said.

An estimated 200 tonnes of rubble fell on to the line when a wall collapsed just outside Liverpool Lime Street station at 17:45 GMT on Tuesday.

Northern Rail confirmed the driver of its Manchester Airport to Liverpool service hit the emergency brake after a red signal was triggered.

"It was seconds from disaster," said RMT regional organiser John Tilley.

"If it had hit the debris, then it would have derailed and there would have been fatalities.

"The only saving grace would have been that it was [only] travelling at 50mph.

"The debris coming down triggered the sensors [on the overhead lines] which thought that a train was on the line so the signal went red.

"Thankfully the train was just the right side of the signal otherwise it would have been a different story."


The 16:40 Northern service from Manchester Airport had to be evacuated, as did another Northern train from Wigan which was behind it.

A Virgin Trains service going to London Euston, which had just left Liverpool just after 18:00, also had to be halted.

A Northern spokesman said: "We are aware of two of our trains being caught up in the wall collapse.

"It just shows the red signal system works."

Network Rail said it was aware that trains had to be evacuated.

It has said it expects services in and out of the station to resume by 9 March.

 

[ExRes]

It's good to know that RMT are taking the usual professional line, no over exaggeration or scaremongering from them eh?

 

[PR1Berske]

I'm somewhat exasperated by the RMT choosing the doom and gloom line. "There could have been deaths" is true of any day of travel by train, road, plane, or bike. Nobody yet knows the circumstances of this incident after all.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

The debris coming down triggered the sensors [on the overhead lines] which thought that a train was on the line so the signal went red.

Do they really mean the track circuits or are there actually sensors in the OLE that can sense when a loco/unit is drawing power from the OLE?

 

[Bletchleyite]

"There would have been fatalities"? LM had quite a serious collision involving a landslip and there weren't.

 

[mikemcniven]

I agree they are scare mongering, I only posted it as it does confirm it was quite close to a train hitting the debris, I didn't hear the bit about the "There could have been injury" otherwise I might not have posted it.

On another note progress has been made at site as seen from the Twitter feed, seems to be more equipment and diggers/excavators arriving on site now.

 

[ExRes]

I agree they are scare mongering, I only posted it as it does confirm it was quite close to a train hitting the debris, I didn't hear the bit about the "There could have been injury" otherwise I might not have posted it.

I think it's fortunate that you did post it, it is not right that the RMT should come out with this sort of rubbish in nothing other than an attempt to score political points, the public will assume that anything an 'expert' says is true when all this man is doing is putting forward his own version of a disaster film script

 

[tgsh2011]

I think some miss the point. Had that rubble fallen from such a height onto a passing train I do not think it an exaggeration to suggest (perhaps) one of the worse rail disasters in this nation's history. Thankfully nothing more than massive inconvenience for one of the largest cities in the UK has come from this (adding to the disruption caused by the closure of the Loop Line).

The litigation blame game will no doubt commence in due course; however, it seems to me, that there are questions of common sense to be addressed. These are walls circa 150 years (at least) old, on one of the oldest railway lines on the planet. I am astonished that more has not been done to bring those walls up to modern standards. That said, probably best to let the inquiry and any civil litigation do their work and provide everyone with answers.

 

[MichaelAMW]

I think some miss the point. Had that rubble fallen from such a height onto a passing train I do not think it an exaggeration to suggest (perhaps) one of the worse rail disasters in this nation's history.

I do. I think the structural rigidity of modern rolling stock is rather good. We have had accidents where trains have been thrown all over the place, e.g. Potters Bar, Grayrigg, even Ladbroke Grove, with nevertheless pretty good maintenance of the integrity of the passenger compartment.

 

[urbophile]

Scaremongering about a derailment causing many fatalities, perhaps. But the thought of a train actually being underneath when the wall collapsed doesn't bear thinking about. Modern rolling stock's toughness might be 'rather good', but I wouldn't want to test that in this situation.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I do. I think the structural rigidity of modern rolling stock is rather good. We have had accidents where trains have been thrown all over the place, e.g. Potters Bar, Grayrigg, even Ladbroke Grove, with nevertheless pretty good maintenance of the integrity of the passenger compartment.

And trains run relatively slowly on this length of track.

A few months ago a LM 350 derailed after hitting a landslip near Watford Junction, and was soon after hit by another 350. The units were seriously damaged, but there were, if I recall rightly, only minor injuries, and were certainly no deaths.

On the other hand there are Pacers, with a lightweight (but still structural unlike Mk1s) body on a heavy underframe. One of these may not have fared so well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The litigation blame game will no doubt commence in due course; however, it seems to me, that there are questions of common sense to be addressed. These are walls circa 150 years (at least) old, on one of the oldest railway lines on the planet. I am astonished that more has not been done to bring those walls up to modern standards. That said, probably best to let the inquiry and any civil litigation do their work and provide everyone with answers.

It's also concerning that Network Rail seemingly were not aware of the apparent growing bulge in the wall that seems, as documented above, to have been about for a while.

The RAIB outcome will make interesting reading.

 

[Camden]

I'm somewhat exasperated by the RMT choosing the doom and gloom line. "There could have been deaths" is true of any day of travel by train, road, plane, or bike. Nobody yet knows the circumstances of this incident after all.

In fairness, stripping out how fast trains were or were not going, yes of course there could have been deaths. With a train passing every few seconds to minutes, the 200 tonnes could easily have landed on top of one.

That's not just "one of those things", or an accident that is a statistical inevitability. It's 200 tonnes of stuff falling 80 feet onto a railway. That much of the incident is all you need to know to make a reasonable statement as to possible consequences.

 

[northwichcat]

BBC North West Today reporting the RMT saying a train was seconds away from hitting the debris, which Northern have said a Manchester Airport to Liverpool Lime Street service did have to hit the emergency breaks

On the just before 8am bulletin they mentioned the use of emergency brakes and that around 150 passengers were on board.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's not just "one of those things", or an accident that is a statistical inevitability. It's 200 tonnes of stuff falling 80 feet onto a railway. That much of the incident is all you need to know to make a reasonable statement as to possible consequences.

It isn't just one of those things, no, and it will require a thorough investigation and procedural changes at Network Rail, no doubt. But scaremongering is uncalled-for and the RMT should be ashamed of themselves for it.

 

[Camden]

A few months ago a LM 350 derailed after hitting a landslip near Watford Junction, and was soon after hit by another 350. The units were seriously damaged, but there were, if I recall rightly, only minor injuries, and were certainly no deaths.

The emergency brakes were applied when the driver saw the obstruction. The train slightly derailed and was thankfully only clipped by a passing train.

Two spots of raw luck don't mean that tonnes of rubble across tracks equals no danger. The immediate and considerable danger of death is obvious.