Bird Strike
 

Bird Strike
For many years, drivers of diesel and electric trains in the UK were at risk from bird strikes when working at speeds where a bird hitting the front of the train could penetrate the windscreen of the driving cab.

In an effort to provide a better degree of safety (and to reduce delays, of course), research was done to find a suitable toughened glass windscreen for drivers. As part of this research, advice was sought from airline suppliers, who suggested that a good test for any new glass type was to fire a chicken at high speed towards the window material. The test was duly set up and a number of dead chickens obtained.

The test with the first chicken showed that the glass was not tough enough, even though it was of a standard used by airlines. A second test also smashed the glass. Another test smashed the third windscreen. Repeated attempts showed that no glass could stand up to the chicken being fired at it. More advice was sought from the airline people, who could not understand why the glass they offered could withstand airborne bird strikes but kept failing the railway tests. They decided to come to witness the test.

The railway research team set up a new test and sent someone to obtain more chickens. When the chickens arrived, it was then the airline experts realised what was wrong. They told the railway research team, "You know, you do have to defrost the chickens first".

Absolutely priceless :rolleyes:

I remember seeing a TV science program about this a long time ago . I'm pretty sure that at one point they were showing how tough the glass was by shooting a brake cylinder at the window at 100 mph.

The stuff they were demonstrating actually stopped it, but I don't imagine that particular type went into everyday use. There have been quite a few cases recently of objects dangled over bridges and tunnel mouths and they've all penetrated the cab, sadly.

When I was a fireman at a small town call Dett or Dete as it is now named, I was in the railway club one night when one of my friends came in having just come off duty. It was quite late and he said he needed a drink to calm his nerves, he was a bit on the pale side. We asked what had upset him so much as to be honest, he was more than a bit pale, in fact he was quite white.
He said that he had just fired the Mail Train up from Sawmills to Dett and that they were traveling along at a fair lick when they hit something on the track. They had a small jolt and something flashed over the roof of the 15th class Garratt and landed in the tender. The train was brought to a quick stop and a light was aimed into the tender. There was a dead elephant in the tender.
Elephant are very hard to see at night even with the 250 watt head light on a Garratt. They don’t help themselves ether as they tend to throw dust over themselves and roll in the mud. The shape of the front tender also helped the elephant to roll over the engine. While the driver was checking the loco over for damage, the African passengers in the coaches behind the loco very soon had the elephant stripped down to the bone. Africans do not waste food and everything was taken. Even the bone makes good soup. When the train got moving again and Pete started firing, he found that there was a lot of blood and bit in the tender and on the coal, even though he had used the slack hose on it. It was not the fact that they had killed an elephant, or the accident its self that had upset him. It was the smell of the blood and bit cooking that turned his stomach. Needles to say, he did not keep that beer down ether. I wonder if today’s locos would stand up to an elephant strike. The Garrett only had the headlight bent, even the glass was undamaged.

Nice one Syd, the biggest thing we ever hit on BR was a Pheasant. Sometimes when arriving at our destination the front end would have quite a few dead birds splattered on it.

It is only a matter of time before one of us get a pheasant on the Wirksworth Branch when we start passenger services to Idridgehay, (3 1/2 miles), hopefully early March, (Please everyone keep fingers crossed, the HMRI inspection is next week!), as we will be running at 25mph instead of the 8 mph of the current works train, which might catch them out (the pheasants not the HMRI!)

However once the lastest arrival is commisioned (400hp English Electric 0-6-0) the pheasants may be even more vulnerable! (See Gallery)

Best wioshes,

John H-T

I used to think that pheasants were mind-numbingly stupid, but I reckon they're on a mission. They know that they've been bred to be killed by sportsmen, and are determined finish themselves off before that happens.

I like the new Avatar Locojoe

Hi Syd about the avatar, I've got plenty of time now for doodling.

It always amazes me how few pheasants actually get hit by trains. When I used to drive to Boulby potash mine, there was always dozens of the stupid birds dotted about all over the railway and I'd go blazing through them at about 25mph. On the return trip I'd expect to see total carnage, but very few were ever actually hit.

Crows are always difficult to hit as well, but I did hit one once, with the middle windscreen on a Class 37. When I got to York, the guard, who had been in the back cab, beckoned me over to point out the crow which had suddenly fallen out of the sky en route, and landed right in the middle of the first wagon.

I always thought that I'd never ever hit a cat cos they always seemed to get away in time. That was until I hit three in a week.

Once when I was driving a Middlesbrough to Newcastle train, at Cemetry North in Hartlepool, I hit about half a dozen dogs that were chasing a bitch on heat. They didn't half make a bang. When driving back past the signalbox on my return journey I expected to see total carnage once again with dogs lying limbless all over the place. I couldn't have been more wrong though cos the same half a dozen dogs were still running about after the lady.

I can't compete with hitting an elephant, but the next story still takes some beating. I hadn't been on the footplate very long and I was second man to a grizzled old driver at Darlington. Our job was to take a train to Tyne Yard, and then to bring one back. The shift was pretty uneventful, but the driver never spoke a word to me all shift so I just carried on regardless. Our return train was a class 8 partially fitted train with a Class 31. We had a length of about 60, of which about the first half a dozen wagons were braked, but the others weren't, and we had a guards van at the back.

Now this was in about 1978 when the High Speed Trains had only just started running up the East Coast Mainline. Suddenly, for the first time in the shift, and after about five hours working together and we had just passed Ferryhill, the driver suddenly turned to me and took his dog end out of his mouth and said "I wonder what would happen if one of them there High Speed Trains hit a bullock!" I was a bit taken aback by this statement, but I answered it as best I could by surmising that because the trains were pretty light, and because of the wedge shape at the front, the bullock would probably lift the train off the tracks. He said "Aye. I was thinking the same thing" and then he put his fag back in his gob and continued to drive. About half a minute later after rounding a bend and coming under a couple of bridges, we came upon a cow that was stood in the four foot. The cow saw us and put its head down to charge and the driver made an emergency brake application. Of course we didn't stop and we hit the poor thing. Deja vu or what?

Aircraft heat their windscreens, that makes the glass tougher.