[SystemSafety] The Carmont/Stonehaven rail accident

[Mike Ellims]

Good morning all,

 

Being a climber one of the more unusual things I follow on an occasional basis is the AGU Landslide Blog by Dave Petley of University of Sheffield which discusses the accident at;

 

https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2020/08/13/stonehaven-1/

 

One of links provided takes you to a report on geotechnical issues faced by the railways which has multiple of photos of other landslips and other deformation but didn’t lead to an accident resulting in loss of life, for example the photo on page 16 has the caption “The extensive cutting experienced multiple failures since 2000 with two resulting in train derailments”. Below that is a timeline.. the first entry is “1990’s – British Rail Soil Mechanics divisions sold off. Drainage knowledge lost”.

 

A photo on page 44 has the caption “Rapid failure of a soil cutting at Murthat in Scotland on the West Coast Main Line (Nov 2015). Asset showed no evidence of failure prior to slumping towards the track after a period of relatively normal rainfall. Failure identified by the driver of a passenger train travelling at 125mph”.

 

Landslips seem to be a significant issue.

 

Oh and page 13 has an example of the now ubiquitous risk matrix :-)

The report can be found at;

 

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Earthworks-Technical-Strategy.pdf

 

Which suggests and approach similar to that suggested by Brent is being followed.

 

Cheers.

 

 

From: Dewi Daniels [mailto:dewi.daniels at software-safety.com] 
Sent: 13 August 2020 21:04
To: Peter Bernard Ladkin
Cc: Brent Kimberley; systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de; Mike Ellims
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] The Carmont/Stonehaven rail accident

 

Peter,

 

There was also the fatal accident at Llandeilo on 1987-10-19 where a train fell into the River Towy after a bridge was partially washed away by floods.

Yours,

Dewi Daniels | Director | Software Safety Limited

Telephone +44 7968 837742 | Email d <mailto:ddaniels at verocel.com> ewi.daniels at software-safety.com

Software Safety Limited is a company registered in England and Wales. Company number: 9390590. Registered office: Fairfield, 30F Bratton Road, West Ashton, Trowbridge, United Kingdom BA14 6AZ

 

 

On Thu, 13 Aug 2020 at 20:23, Peter Bernard Ladkin <ladkin at causalis.com> wrote:



On 2020-08-13 20:17 , Brent Kimberley wrote:
> Using asset Management records,  civil & geological know-how, hydro-logical / precipitation
> telemetry, and roadway/railway state estimator(s),  one could develop estimate track risk factors
> which roll-up into a roadway/railway forecast system for use by railway engineers ...

Well, sure. On the other hand, you could go through the *entire list* of railway accidents in the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_in_the_United_Kingdom

and, until yesterday, come up with two (in 190 years) that had weather-related causes, namely on
1977-07-02 and 1986-06-15.

They both had to do with tracks deforming under heat.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
Styelfy Bleibgsnd
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de





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