Scottish Train Derail

[Signalman]

But wouldn't the driver have needed permission to wrong direction move over the points and this would have necessitated permission from the controller/signalman?
Also to slip sideways a little. Isn't this a damn good reason for requiring guards on all trains?

Yes, he would have immediately have contacted the signalman as soon as he stopped at the signal protecting the first landslip - either by calling the signalman or by pressing the "I'm sitting at a red signal like a c***! WTF are you doing?" button on GSMR. There would then have been the inevitable bit of waiting for authorisation from control and clearing trains off the route to be used to bring him back. The crossover points may also have required manual clipping before the movement (to lock them closed while the train passes over them - not all crossovers have automatic locks), which would have required a track-bloke or MOM to come and do it and that would have caused a big delay. Once the points were set and locked and the route cleared for the move, the signalman would then have authorised the driver to do the move.

 

[Signalman]

Re guards: We've still got them on all passenger trains in the sticks, because we don't have those ticket-barrier things in the 'stations' (an elaborate term generally used to describe a windswept concrete block at the side of the railway in the middle of fecking nowhere, about 50 miles from the nearest member of railway staff), so it's mainly all about revenue protection, selling tickets and dealing with the occasional drunken arse, as there are no platform staff to do it.

The safety argument is complicated. Back in 't'old days, they would assist the driver in placing dets on the line to protect a failed train or 'incident'. Since the advent of effective comms via GSMR that simply never happens. To be honest, it hardly ever happened before that, either! On our tiny country trains with 1-4 carriages they can also be of use in helping to control passengers during an incident, but they can only ever be in one carriage. What are they going to achieve on a train with 8-10 carriages?

So down here in the sticks they still have plenty of use, but in busier areas with larger trains, ticket-barriers and lots of platform staff, I'm less convinced.

In this instance, the guard was also a casualty, so it's all academic. It's just sheer luck that a member of rail staff was on board who probably knew in which direction to start walking to find the signal box.

 

[Gardner6LXB]

Yeah, I was wondering that and can only suppose that perhaps he couldn't log in to the system or the power was out or it had suffered damage? GSMR is very robust and it normally takes the loss of three masts to lose coverage in any particular location, as they're designed to completely overlap each other's cells. They've also got backup batteries and hoofing lightning protection, so power-cuts don't normally affect them. If the local signalman's terminal is down, the functions will be automatically transferred to another terminal and all emergency calls are automatically repeated to the regional control centre anyway.

The person using it wouldn’t need to login. They just need to press any button to bring it to life & then press the ‘E’ button. That, as I’m certain you know, goes straight to you & NR control.

 

[Gardner6LXB]

odd question - on a normal, non-coronavirus day, how many trains run in the UK?

I wonder if it would be at all practical to leverage the GSM-R system to TX a GPS position & speed report say every minute. I know GSM-R wasn’t originally designed for data, but for normal GSM systems, it was a relatively simple add-on for GPRS2.5G.

But it might not be at all practical, I just don’t know enough about it. Absence of a GPS ping might cause a lot of false alarms, but better one of those than one of these.

GSM-R is fitted with GPS & the driver can call up his location to give to, say an air ambulance if needed between stations.

 

[grimbo]

And they weren't really envisioning the speeds that would be routine on large parts of the track either.

I think the comment was more to indicate the age that the network has been in existence rather than as a slur on their engineering competence.

The Victorian infrastructure is in many cases still well up to the job......the fact that it is poorly or not maintained at all is hardly the fault of the Victorians
A local branch line has suffered landslips over the last few years .... the farmer who owns the surrounding land pointed out several blocked culverts that were ignored and pointed out to Network Rail who didn't seem able to join the dots and work out that by cutting down the line side trees they killed the root network that was stabilising their embankment ...... so much so they cut down another huge section of trees and strangely a few years later this was the location of the next landslip.....
Farmer not unhappy as he makes good money from charging for access across his land and use of field as temporary depot.....

 

[Signalman]

The person using it wouldn’t need to login. They just need to press any button to bring it to life & then press the ‘E’ button. That, as I’m certain you know, goes straight to you & NR control.

Cheers. Funnily enough, I've never actually seen what the train-cab end of the system actually looks like or how it's operated.

 

[Signalman]

GSM-R is fitted with GPS & the driver can call up his location to give to, say an air ambulance if needed between stations.

Really?! I did not know that. And I think of the times I've been trying to work out where they are based on Mile-Post numbers and trying to convert that to OS grid references for the fire brigade...

 

[Roadster280]

Interesting document:

https://cdn.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Network-Rail-Telecoms-briefing-pack.pdf

 

[Signalman]

The Victorian infrastructure is in many cases still well up to the job......the fact that it is poorly or not maintained at all is hardly the fault of the Victorians
A local branch line has suffered landslips over the last few years .... the farmer who owns the surrounding land pointed out several blocked culverts that were ignored and pointed out to Network Rail who didn't seem able to join the dots and work out that by cutting down the line side trees they killed the root network that was stabilising their embankment ...... so much so they cut down another huge section of trees and strangely a few years later this was the location of the next landslip.....
Farmer not unhappy as he makes good money from charging for access across his land and use of field as temporary depot.....

Yep. Allied to NR's near-complete inability to maintain boundary fencing and then be completely baffled as to why sheep and cattle keep getting on to the line in the same places time after time...

 

[Signalman]

Interesting document:

https://cdn.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Network-Rail-Telecoms-briefing-pack.pdf

What? READ the manual?!

 

[Gardner6LXB]

Cheers. Funnily enough, I've never actually seen what the train-cab end of the system actually looks like or how it's operated.

It looks like this.
When it’s live it says GSM-R UK & has the head code, as entered by the driver, displayed.
The ‘SG’ button is the ‘standing at a red peg pull your finger out’ button.
)1( is to make a direct standard call to you.
‘ST’ is to acknowledge a call without speaking.
Yellow is the priority (calling you) button & over rides any other call in your queue.
The red is the Emergency button, which broadcasts to you, NR & all other trains in the cell. It’s the only time PTT is used on radios now. NRN (seen on left. Old & U/S) was all PTT.
The other buttons are used for various other tasks as well as the in built phone book.

 

[Gardner6LXB]

Really?! I did not know that. And I think of the times I've been trying to work out where they are based on Mile-Post numbers and trying to convert that to OS grid references for the fire brigade...

Yeah. The refs can be called up, but my mistake, it’s via the DAS system which is fitted now.

 

[Roadster280]

@Gardner6LXB - what loco is that in? Looks pretty old. A 47? Any of those still about?

 

[Gardner6LXB]

@Gardner6LXB - what loco is that in? Looks pretty old. A 47? Any of those still about?

Looks like a class 25 to me.

There are a few 47s knocking about, but not on mainline use. Some were converted to class 57s.
Most have been cut up.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Really?! I did not know that. And I think of the times I've been trying to work out where they are based on Mile-Post numbers and trying to convert that to OS grid references for the fire brigade...

Have you seen this? Apparently it works quite well, assuming you have network coverage.

///daring.lion.race

This is the what3words address for a 3 metre square location near London.

what3words.com

 

[Electromagnetic]

Have you seen this? Apparently it works quite well, assuming you have network coverage.

///daring.lion.race

This is the what3words address for a 3 metre square location near London.

what3words.com

It is quite impressive but there's that issue again - coverage. Even on busy English mainlines there are long stretches with poor or no coverage. Not many staff or passengers will have satellite phones or similar. Some of the more reliable units may require a smartphone connected to them via bluetooth to compose a message. I think there are some messages that can be selected from the buttons.
Garmin inReach Explorer®+ | Satellite Communicator with TOPO Maps

 

[Tedsson]

There are mandated trains that TOCs have to run. Have a look at "Parliamentary Trains", also called Ghost Trains.

I am a bit of a railway fan. Mostly for the architecture and infrastructure, less so with rolling stock etc.

I am not sure they are correct in those videos. They are confusing "parliamentary trains" with "ghost trains". The former actually exist and carry passengers so they are hardly ghost trains. The reason for them is self evident, if seemingly burdensome.

I always understood ghost trains were just that. Non-existent phantom trains that were scheduled into railway timetables to maximise the efficiency of the timetable.

Extra trains such as football specials, royal trains, nuclear waste trains etc can then be slotted into the "ghost" spots without rescheduling the timetables.

I spent much of my early childhood leaning on railway bridges waiting for steam trains to pass underneath. The signals would change frequently despite no trains running through them. When I asked why I was given the "ghost train" explanation.

 

[CutLunchCommando]

I am a bit of a railway fan. Mostly for the architecture and infrastructure, less so with rolling stock etc.

I am not sure they are correct in those videos. They are confusing "parliamentary trains" with "ghost trains". The former actually exist and carry passengers so they are hardly ghost trains. The reason for them is self evident, if seemingly burdensome.

I always understood ghost trains were just that. Non-existent phantom trains that were scheduled into railway timetables to maximise the efficiency of the timetable.

Extra trains such as football specials, royal trains, nuclear waste trains etc can then be slotted into the "ghost" spots without rescheduling the timetables.

I spent much of my early childhood leaning on railway bridges waiting for steam trains to pass underneath. The signals would change frequently despite no trains running through them. When I asked why I was given the "ghost train" explanation.

There was a half hour radio documentary on the BBC a while back where the presenter travelled from A to B on a supposedly legally manadatory route. It involved being at a particular station in the small hours for an annual bus substitution service that "completed" the route.

 

[Dan Gleebles]

Well done to the individual who did it, but FFS, walking a mile is not an heroic act.

'An off-duty train conductor who climbed from the wreckage of the Stonehaven crash and trekked a mile to call for help has been hailed a hero. The unnamed Scotrail worker was a passenger on the 6.38am Aberdeen to Stonehaven train when it derailed after hitting a landslip. They managed to clamber out of an upturned carriage but reportedly could not dial 999 because there was no phone signal at the crash site. The worker travelled a mile to the nearest signal box where they contacted the rail network at 9.40am, allowing them to call emergency services and close off the line, ruling out any chances of another train hitting the wreck.'

'Hero' train conductor walked a mile to get help after Stonehaven crash

With no phone signal at the crash site, an off-duty Scotrail worker who escaped the wreckage walked a mile to the nearest signal box.

metro.co.uk

Under normal circumstances and injury free, walking a mile isn't difficult.

Do we know the physical and mental condition of the casualty who crawled from the wreckage?

I'm guessing that he may have been suffering from more than just slight discomfort and mild nausea, but there are a multitude of Biff's in the armed forces who are at deaths door when they have to run a BFT.

 

[ugly]

Really?! I did not know that. And I think of the times I've been trying to work out where they are based on Mile-Post numbers and trying to convert that to OS grid references for the fire brigade...

Even the old line side spt phones had to have a grid reference on the label inside