S N Barnes
Member
- Joined
- 20 Jan 2011
- Messages
- 16
With another engineer based in Surrey, I was already on the trail of OPAS failures to deliver a reliable and accurate review of structures condition across stations & other fixed assets on the rail estate
His local station as timber platforms (100% structure & deck) built c.1950 with extensions for 3 coach & now 4-coach trains 'stitched' on to the old platform, more make it up as we go, than a sensible plan of building a new pair of platforms with step-free access & a direct link for the 30% of users who walk the 500m & climb a 6 metre flight of steps from the station on another line, operated by another TOC. Extending the old platforms is a fudge, as this means the work does not create a new station, and thus the current non-compliant arrangment of a station on top of an embankment with only 1 access to each platform could remain
The steel staircases replaced a timber one with a barrow crossing in 1984, with a projected 25 year life (do the sums?). OPAS inspections over the past 15 years had instructed clean off corrosion, treat, and paint, which had never been done, nor subject to audit scrutiny. The result steel plates & sections now beyond treatment, with rust lamination, and daylight seen through holes patchd up (badly) with timber. When new waiting shelters were ordered & platform stripped back, major rot was revealed, delaying the work...and of course, only patch repairs!
There are around 87 stations on UK network with timber in all or part of platforms, some in a dire state from what I've seen, and no group standard for timber platforms? (Godley pictured) Do DM me what you see.
Post Northwich its now gone rather quiet from ORR & RAIB, and I'm wondering if the sheer scale of close-to collapse structures is similar to the void revealed post Hatfield, and also has parallels with the Staines Moor Lane LC fatality in 2008, where a crossing reported as unsafe & slippery by HMRI in 1996, was 'lost' as a job to clear for 12 years, until someone died because it was not done. Subsequent to the RAIB report there was a flurry of dealing with slippery timber crossings yet 9 years later, checking out 3 Horseshoes No 3 where cyclists regulalry get felled and a motorcyclist died - there was still untreated, slippery, timber on the footway strips
His local station as timber platforms (100% structure & deck) built c.1950 with extensions for 3 coach & now 4-coach trains 'stitched' on to the old platform, more make it up as we go, than a sensible plan of building a new pair of platforms with step-free access & a direct link for the 30% of users who walk the 500m & climb a 6 metre flight of steps from the station on another line, operated by another TOC. Extending the old platforms is a fudge, as this means the work does not create a new station, and thus the current non-compliant arrangment of a station on top of an embankment with only 1 access to each platform could remain
The steel staircases replaced a timber one with a barrow crossing in 1984, with a projected 25 year life (do the sums?). OPAS inspections over the past 15 years had instructed clean off corrosion, treat, and paint, which had never been done, nor subject to audit scrutiny. The result steel plates & sections now beyond treatment, with rust lamination, and daylight seen through holes patchd up (badly) with timber. When new waiting shelters were ordered & platform stripped back, major rot was revealed, delaying the work...and of course, only patch repairs!
There are around 87 stations on UK network with timber in all or part of platforms, some in a dire state from what I've seen, and no group standard for timber platforms? (Godley pictured) Do DM me what you see.
Post Northwich its now gone rather quiet from ORR & RAIB, and I'm wondering if the sheer scale of close-to collapse structures is similar to the void revealed post Hatfield, and also has parallels with the Staines Moor Lane LC fatality in 2008, where a crossing reported as unsafe & slippery by HMRI in 1996, was 'lost' as a job to clear for 12 years, until someone died because it was not done. Subsequent to the RAIB report there was a flurry of dealing with slippery timber crossings yet 9 years later, checking out 3 Horseshoes No 3 where cyclists regulalry get felled and a motorcyclist died - there was still untreated, slippery, timber on the footway strips
