SVR General Discussion

Equally, thank heavens there was nobody at work inside the door and nothing happened which resulted in fire or explosion.

 

Official Statement from Jonathan Dunster -

“An incident involving 4930 Hagley Halloccurred at Bridgnorth motive power depot on the evening of Sunday 12 July.

“The locomotive is currently awaiting assessment, and I’m pleased to report that no one was injured. We have begun a full investigation to establish exactly what happened and cannot comment further until that is complete.”

 

Thank you for sharing.

 

We had similar incidences at another railway. After the third instance of carriage shed doors being demolished, derailers were installed outside.

 

The only photo I have seen of the Hagley Hall incident is the one on post 5341 by "Defiance 149" whoever he or she might be! there appears to be more pictures but I have to join something called X, Slight problem here, I do not do unsocial media, So I can only go on the one that is shown in post 541.
The Locomotive is outside the shed, Obviously the tender has entered the shed with the roller shutter door down, It can clearly be seen resting on top of the coal. It is hard to tell if 4930 is in steam or not as only the cab which is undamaged, is shown in the picture.
So a lot of fuss about nothing much.

 

It is in steam, you can see steam coming from the whistles. It's not a lot of fuss about nothing, it's gone 25' through a set of closed shutters that could've had people working behind it.

 

I have to say that the Incident at the Churnet Valley was almost unique in the lack of speculation or even announcements on what happened. All i have seen is a statement that it was a Swiss cheese situation. I have heard more but it is only third hand.

 

Very sad on 4930. Wasn't there a buffer stop on that road?

 

There used to be, yes

 

And a set of buffer stops prior to the door

 

Although I have no view either way I do find it strange the difference between railway incidents both on NR & HR lines where there is a do not talk about it mentality and an aviation incident where it gets discussed to death (excuse the pun) and some of that analysis is extremely useful. For example it was only off the back of last weeks Ryanair incident that despite having purchased them in my career I fully understood the construction and certain purposes of aircraft cabin windows.

 

Sounds expensive! Hoping no one was hurt and that repairs to Hagley aren't overly difficult despite sounding likely so.

 

If the damage to the engine, as unofficially reported, has been correctly recounted, it is indeed significant. It's going to take a fair amount of time, money, and work to repair it. (Goodness knows about the shed, etc.)


About the line reportingly publicly: of course they can't speak to how it happened; or how long it will take, or exactly how much it will cost, to repair it, until a thorough investigation has been performed. But there is a vast spectrum between that, and 'we can't say anything until the investigation been completed'. For goodness' sake, it's a steam locomotive - macroscopic 19th century technology - not a dead computer, where visual inspection can often/usually tell one nothing at all about what is broken.

It should be easy to list all the major components which have visible, serious, damage. Yes, there can be kinds of damage to mechanical components which visual inspection cannot disclose (cracks, etc); those go into the category of 'more investigation required'.

However, there is an inevitable information vacuum in cases like these, and if the line doesn't take steps to fill it - e.g. with a list of major components with serious damage - others will (as here). It seems to me that overall, it's worth it, to the line, to expend the effort needed to report what can be reported early on - to avoid leaving a vacuum to be filled by others.

Noel

 

Harry, it's time you stopped such trivialities as preparing for a gala, testing and repairing visiting engines, maintaining and repairing the home fleet so a service can be run and got down to the really serious issue of satisfying the idle curiosity and absolute need for immediate information by people with no connection to the SVR or the engine. You should realise that information supply has moved on from being easier to pass on to being absolutely essential to feed the morbid curiosity of the masses, so please get your act together and give this most vital function your urgent and absolute attention.

 

Given the very public place the incident took place, avoiding speculation seems an extremely unlikely and futile expectation. Early realisation of this and an attempt to control narrative by releasing the facts (however brief), would seem to be the best approach.

 

I've worked in both Railway and Aviation safety and post-accident analysis. I don't see these same difference as you. Both industries share the facts and lessons of any event widely once known and confirmed. Both attempt to avoids speculation - with various degrees of success. Both publish reports to the public (if you know where to look).

Aviation is more international, but I think that's due to the nature of flight vs train travel.

As an aside .... sharing of lessons and sale of safety-related aviation spares is almost always allowed, even when a county has international sanctions against it. Safety comes before politics.

 

Also been involved in Aircraft Safety aspects, in a high level meeting of airlines etc even had it stated by 2 quite serious contenders in the industry one thing we don't compete on is safety adding sharing lessons learnt is key.

 

Why?. Were they not allowed to photograph and report it?. It IS newsworthy, after all.