The 47's

[meurglysIII]

Looks like you were lucky to survive that Ewan, those pictures show the damage to be worse than I expected. I assume you escaped unhurt?

[Dynamo]

Originally Posted by meurglysIII

Looks like you were lucky to survive that Ewan, those pictures show the damage to be worse than I expected. I assume you escaped unhurt?

Funnily enough I was totally unscathed. It was the wierdest thing though. They say when incidents happen they appear to happen in slow motion, and in this case they did appear like that. I remember coming against the van, and then there was a big BANG noise, then the van lifted in the air, and then the window shattered and the whole drivers desk moved towards me. The reason why I wasn't trapped against the desk was because the drivers seat went back at the same rate, so when the action had died down, the seat was now no longer alongside the drivers window, it was now next to the door. The AWS horn started blaring so I shut that off.

I thought I was trapped in the cab and fully expected to need to be cut out of it. The guard was called Bob Williams and he'd been riding in the back cab. I think he stood outside the cab and shouted up asking if I was okay, then he disappeared for a minute before appearing in the cab next to me after coming through the engine room. It hadn't occured to me that I'd be able to leave the cab that way.

Cheers. Ewan.

[Foghut]

Originally Posted by Dynamo

Funnily enough I was totally unscathed. It was the wierdest thing though.

Holy Cow !! Someone 'up there' likes you.

I've heard drivers moan about having to wear binbags in a 47 because the weather got in, but it sounds like the structural design was sound.

It's a strange thing, vehicle collisions. In my youth I was a Retained Firefighter, and I've seen people step unscathed out mangled wrecks, whilst conversely fatalities have been pulled out of cars when both they and the car hardly had a scratch on 'em. As we know from recent Crumple Zone research, it's very much a matter of energy dissipation. The idea in modern vehicle design is to ensure the crash energy bypasses the humans and is channelled through the structure.

PS: I wonder how a 66 would fare nowadays ?

[Deathbyteacup]

PS: I wonder how a 66 would fare nowadays

I would assume very well?

....I'm not the biggest fan of the 66 though. It's too Canadian. >_>

[Foghut]

Well despite much discussion there still haven't been cages incorporated into cab design. OK, there is a thumping great steel chassis on a 66 but it doesn't do anything to protect above solebar level - there's still only a fascia panel between the driver and the outside world.

I appreciate that the kinetic energy involved when a freight train meets a solid object is enormous, but it's worth a try deflecting it away from the traincrew. (At least when they made the 67s they used monocoque construction, which should be considerably stronger).

[Deathbyteacup]

Originally Posted by Foghut

Well despite much discussion there still haven't been cages incorporated into cab design. OK, there is a thumping great steel chassis on a 66 but it doesn't do anything to protect above solebar level - there's still only a fascia panel between the driver and the outside world.

I appreciate that the kinetic energy involved when a freight train meets a solid object is enormous, but it's worth a try deflecting it away from the traincrew. (At least when they made the 67s they used monocoque construction, which should be considerably stronger).

Do they not incorporate things like crumple zones etc. into the 66 to protect the driver? I'm quite surprised.

[Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Foghut

I've heard drivers moan about having to wear binbags in a 47 because the weather got in,

It wasn't just 47's. It was virtually all the locomotives that BR had in those days. One day I was on a class 37 and I was absolutely nithered. I found a hole in the floor near the second mans footwarmer and a gale of icy wind was blowing into the cab from it. I got a newspaper and crumpled up the pages into balls and stuffed them into the hole. I think I'd used virtually the whole paper before the hole was finally full and about two minutes later I was as warm as toast.

On another day I was given a DMU to work off Thornaby Depot. It wasn't one of our usual DMU's and looked to have come from a different area and there was draughts coming from just about everywhere. I went to the stores and got a huge roll of masking tape and taped over all the draughts. By the time I'd finished taping, there wasn't much left of the roll, but once again I was nice and warm for my shift.

Cheers. Ewan.

[66521]

Originally Posted by Trev

There is a thread about jinxed locomotives here.

http://www.railwayforum.net/showthre...ghlight=jinxed

I was intrigued about the 47216 story so I followed this link about jinxed locos. And then I realised something which made me do a double take - the accident at Wrawby Junction where it crashed into a DMU killing one person in 1983 happened the day after I'd been through Wrawby Junction on a train to Cleethorpes visiting relatives. Moreover the unit in question was the one I'd travelled on the day before, as when it was on the news, my Dad identified the wreckage from the unit number and realised we'd just travelled on that unit! I'd totally forgotten about this until now, as I was quite young at the time it happened.

[Kenny]

Originally Posted by Dynamo

Thats a very interesting piece there Deathbyteacup. I see that an incident that I had back in 1983 is mentioned there, though I was told that the blame lay in other quarters. It says in that report:-

47367 : NEVILLE HILL : 3.5.83 • • •
On May 3rd 1983 47367 was working a Teeside to Hunslet East Oil Terminal block tank train when it ran into the back of an ecs working to Red Bank near Neville Hill, Leeds. As a result substantial damage was caused which included 47367's No.1 end cab being destroyed when the rear mail van rode up over the buffers of the loco. 47367 was being driven by an inexperienced Thornaby driver who failed to obay subsidary signal and stop short of any obstruction. The Driver was at fault as he was signalled down the Up goods under subsidary signals, meaning "proceed at caution as far as the next subsidary signal and be prepared to stop short of any obstruction"..The Healey Mills recovery train was called to the scene and 47367 was moved to Neville Hill TMD, and later to Crewe Works for repairs. Thanks to Andre Kent of the SF47 Group.

Now then, here's my side of the story. I entered the loop with a heavy train and probably wasn't travelling along as slowly as I maybe should have done, but at the same time, something strange was happening with the train in front. It appeared to be moving towards me as I approached it. I was questioned by my boss a few days afterwards and one of the questions asked was "was the train you hit coming towards you?" to which I said I wasn't sure. All I was interested in was slamming my brakes on as hard as possible. After that I never heard another word about the incident for a good ten years. There was no inquiry and no blame was laid at my door.

One day I was talking to a Traction Inspector called Jimmy Hatch and the incident was mentioned. I told him I thought it was strange that nobody had ever come back to me about the incident. He was shocked that I'd heard nothing about it in the meantime. He told me that the signalman had taken the blame for it because apart from the fact that he shouldn't have been turning my train in on top of another train like that, he was also allowing a shunting movement to take place. The parcel train had stopped at the light at the end of the loop, detatched the loco, gone into the sidings and picked up a few more vans, gone back onto his train in the loop, and then propelled his train back behind the light. Thats when I was approaching it. I only actually hit the back of the van doing a very slow speed, but because of the weight on my loco, the van sprung up over the buffers of my engine and pranged the front where the headcode indicator is.

Read into both reports what you will. The only thing I will add to it is that if the railways had deemed me to be guilty as the first report said, I'm bloody sure that I'd have had my knuckles well and truly rapped, even considering that I was supposedly "inexperienced" (I'd been passed as a driver for 18 months at this time), but I can honestly say that I've never heard anything official about the incident since.

Here's some pics I have just found of the smash.

http://www.sf47group.co.uk/html/Gall...ill1983_1.html

http://www.sf47group.co.uk/html/Gall...l030583_a.html

http://www.sf47group.co.uk/html/Gall...l030583_b.html

http://www.sf47group.co.uk/html/Gall...l030583_c.html

http://www.sf47group.co.uk/html/Gall...l030583_d.html

Cheers. Ewan.

Ewan thanks for the informative drivers eye view on what happened and will update the 47367 history page on the events of that day.

Andre

SF 47 Group

[Arthur Maunsell]

very interesting...Im glad you are here to talk about it...you used up one of your 9 lives there i think...