Train Crash in Lake District
 

The BBC are reporting that a train crash has occured between Oxenholme and Tebay in the Lake District. Initial reports state that a Virgin train from London Euston to the North is involved. I assume this to be a Pendolino.
No further info at present.

News now starting to come in here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6391633.stm

Sounds quite bad going by the BBC report.

"some carriages stuck up in the air and some are just lying on their sides".

GBRf_66709

Christian Wolmar has just been spouting off on the BBC news, as a "Railway Expert", god i wish that man would keep his gob shut, he just adding more speculation into whats happening, and cannot answer questions with well informed dialouge.

Mr Wolmar, let the real real experts do their job, I am a incident and recovery engineer for the railway, and his comments just dont help!

Thank fully im a freight man, and not called to passenger incidents, but i feel for those who are there...the press needs to take a step back and let those who are supposed to be there do their jobs!

Regards
r

I agree totaly with the coment's made by Ringoosmeg,as a railway man that had to go to both the Southall and Paddington rail crash site's.
The press have done that thing they do all the time and jumped on the band wagon and the so called expert's come out with there ideas of happend when to be honest no one know's what has happpend,what relly get's to me is that even after a train crash some one gave pictures of inside the trian to the press witch where shown on the news.
I would just be happy to have got out of the train,the action of some people is just unbeliverble :mad: :mad:

All the best,Ian

Oh dear Wolmars spouting again, now hes an expert on points and equipment, I know now that my 26 years of derailment, recovery and investigation means nothing, I just need to be an arrogant irritating **at, and I can solve all the railway incidents from the comfort of a TV studio.

hes calling the front of the Pendo a locomotive! well that says it all!

All I'll say is....Wolmar...NO! keep it shut. Let the RAIB and HMRI do their stuff.

As for the emergency services who attended, well done to those lads and lasses, Ive worked with them many times over the years and THEY and not **ats like Wolmar have my admiration and support, not forgetting the Recovery gangs who will have to retrieve the stock, its dirty and very tiring work, and not pleasant in these conditions.
R

I agree Ian. For a long time the media have intruded on people's grief with their cameras and microphones............now the public are doing the same:mad:

But on another note, I am really impressed by how well the train stayed together and even the glass didnt break. They were so lucky the train didnt hit anything like a bridge (Like the German ICE crash a few years back)

So sad that the Greyrigg area has claimed yet another railway victim.

The reporting of this accident has been utterly ridiculous in my opinion.

The guy from Network Rail (Arnott?) was being interviewed on the TV at the scene, and was asked how he could justify his salary. I'm sorry, but that was just plain sick. Another reporter asked him what points were for. It beggars belief.

A BBC reporter got in on the act and went into hyperbole by describing the train as 'crowded with one hundred passengers'...what's that then? Less than 25 people per carriage?

It's very sad that one person has died, and several have been seriously injured, but accidents do happen. I wonder how many people have died or been injured in road crashes today?

Average of 10 per day dead, and 90 seriously injured............near enough.

or "100 dead and seriously injured every day" in BBC speak.

This has been near enough constant for many years. As traffic volumes are increasing this counts as an "improvement".

Apparently it is now being said that it was because of the safety designs of the 390 that stopped this from being a much worse accident. Richard Branson has said that it was not a fault with the 390 that caused this and that it was to do with the track.

All the news reporters are calling the end driving cabs engines. EMUs don't have engines. I was amazed how well the 390 stayed together, not like MK1s.

GBRf_66709

Typically one sided reporting of the crash asking how the safest for of land transport can recover from its latest fatal crash. I mean they dont say this about road transport when there is a pile up on the M6.:mad: :mad:

There was a serious road crash this morning in Lincolnshire, reported on BBC 'Look North'. Seven injured, four of them (including a small boy) seriously. The news item on it lasted about 15 seconds. Something is seriously skewed in the way accidents are reported.

A piece on the TV news this evening showed a pair of facing points at Greyrigg which are supposedly under investigation. From what I could see, they seemed to have been set for the train to proceed straight on. If that is so, does anyone have any idea on what the cause of the crash could have been?

Trev,
its very dangerous to speculate on anything until you have first hand intimate knowledge of the area, and all systems to back it up, indeed the point may look ok, but there could be intrinsic built in problems, also who is to say that it isnt a vehicle fault, after all the vehicles have not yet been fully inspected, first off is to gauge all the wheels for conformance against GM/RT 2466!
I carry out incident investigations and recovery when the company I work for has a mishap, believe me, never speculate until youve seen the incident site at first hand, seeing from a TV screen tells you nothing at first, but can give vital evedence once all aspects are taken into account.
Only time will give us all the answer.
regards
R

Sir Richard Branson thinks that the points were the cause of the derailment.
He said this after praising the Virgin driver (who was seriously injured, sadly) for staying at the controls and managing to steer the train after it left the tracks !!

On Radio 5 this morning someone was praising the driver for trying to steer the train to safety......Sheeeh

Ivan

I think i'll give up work now then,i see every body is now an expert on railway incerdent's,let's get some proper info before we start saying what happened.
:( :(
All the best,Ian.

Tikctes are being accepted on GNER, VXC and TPX for anyone wanting to travel north via the ECML whilst the north WCML is closed.

Ian,
I too dispare at the comments made on TV, nothing alarms me more than poor ill informed reporting and quotes by those who do not have first hand knowledge of the subject, as ive said before, ive been involved with incident and recovery work (both at grass rootes hands on {hence the BRUFF in my addy} through to sitting on panels as an "expert" in my field for major incident inquiries) for 26 years, but ive now come to expect this rubbish from the likes of SKY, ITN and even the BBC, and as for the bit that I read in the Sunday Mail today....

R

Did you hear the bit where Branson described the train as "running along the er.... stones"?

Yes Trev, I did.
It's only right that Branson should support his driver but some of the things he said were unbelievable. I got the impression that his comments were an attempt to turn the accident into a positive public relations exercise for Virgin Trains.
Last night ITN were so short of material with which to extend the story that they had to resort to an "exclusive" interview with a local farmer. He described the sound of the accident as being so loud that his wife thought a storm was brewing and that there were two flashes like localised lightning. Isn't that what you would expect when a 470 tonne electric train comes off the tracks at 95 mph? This is certainly reporting at it's best :rolleyes:

Thank heavens we have someone like Ringoosmeg on the forum. As he works in the area of accidents etc, he knows how to calm things down and keep people like me from running off at the mouth like the media. They (the media) love to speculate on anything and an accident on the railway is just too ripe for picking. They have proved that they know nothing about the systems or how it works (a reporter asked him what points were for) so they ask stupid questions of anyone they can find and report or print as "An Expert Said".
I will take Ringoosmeg's advice and just wait until I can read the full report and not speculate on what may or may not have happened.

It's just a case of some one else that should not be there,making remarks about some thing he know's nothing about.:mad: :mad:
All the best,Ian.

The media can speculate all it wants too !! It wont make a scrap of differance to the outcome of any inquiry that will take place. All it will do is to show the media and its reporting as a load of XXXX. The trouble is - will the media report its bad speculation of the event or try to turn the spotlight onto someone else or another subject. I`ve yet to meet a reporter who can get the facts right as they have been given to him.

The official interim report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...7_grayrigg.pdf

Oh dear, everyone knocks Branson! Can u imagine Sir Brian Robertson or even the Dr Beeching even bothering, at least the chap turned up and we know he is. The good thing about this tragedy is the the Pendelino's were strong enough to with stand the derailment. I find it amazing that the windows were intact.

On one hand it is very good as it keeps everyone in the train during the crash, as being flung out is usually much worse.

But after the crash if you had to get out in a hurry (fire etc) I wonder if you would be able to find one of them fiddly little hammers to break the windows? :(

If they are going to build coaches like aircraft fuselages, maybe we need emergency exit doors at the mid-length of the carriage?

It's not so much a case of knocking Branson for the sake of it, but the man knows nothing whatsoever about railways! He's the money man, and that's about all. Had he appeared at the crash site along with the man/woman who is in charge of the railway part of the Branson empire, then I would have been more impressed. Kudos to him for turning up, and I'm certain that he was truly upset over the accident, but I think he should have restricted his comments to expressions of sympathy.

I have missed out on most of this as I have been away in Poland. There seems to be quite a good analysis in Railway Herald.

Lets face it, they are all in it for profit. Even the old railways were in it for what they could make, Just a pity they didn't manage to make any money for various reasons. I personally think Branson has done more for the railways than say South west trains and First trains.

Its reported that grayrigg will re-open on monday