Rail (UK)

Track and sig­nals re­paired after Sh­effield ce­ment train de­rail­ment

- Accidents · Sheffield · Network Rail Route 18 · South Yorkshire · East Midlands Railway · East Midlands · St Pancras, London · Freightliner · Rail Accident Investigation Branch · Cardiff Central to Nottingham Route · TransPennine Express

Net­work Rail has con­firmed that a Freight­liner Heavy Haul ce­ment train that de­railed in Sh­effield sta­tion early on Novem­ber 11 caused sig­nif­i­cant dam­age.

Six­teen of the 34 PCA wag­ons that formed the 0213 HopeDews­bury ce­ment train de­railed, with one tip­ping on its side ( RAIL 918).

The train, hauled by FL 66603, was run­ning at slow speed on a through line between Plat­forms 1 and 2 when the de­rail­ment oc­curred.

Ef­fec­tively block­ing the ma­jor­ity of plat­forms, the de­rail­ment re­sulted in the can­cel­la­tion of dozens of pas­sen­ger ser­vices. NR was able to re­open some lines by mid­day, al­low­ing a lim­ited num­ber of trains to run through the far east­ern side of the sta­tion.

Speak­ing at the site on the day of the ac­ci­dent, NR North and

East Route Direc­tor Matt Rice ac­knowl­edged: “The dam­age is sig­nif­i­cant. In sim­ple terms, we’re go­ing to have to put back the rail­way un­derneath the train. It looks like it has been pretty much de­stroyed and it’s go­ing to be quite com­plex.

“Nat­u­rally, travel is for key work­ers only, so we are not manag­ing huge num­bers of pas­sen­gers. But peo­ple do need the rail­way, so we need to get it back open as soon as we can.”

Rail Ac­ci­dent In­ves­ti­ga­tion Branch in­spec­tors be­gan gath­er­ing ev­i­dence on site. At one stage a cor­don was in place around the rear por­tion of the train, close to where the through line re­joins the Plat­form 1 road. The on-site phase of the RAIB’s ac­tiv­ity was com­pleted the day after the de­rail­ment.

While Net­work Rail was able to move some of the four-wheel, 16ft wheel­base wag­ons by rail, the re­cov­ery oper­a­tion was com­pli­cated by the need to empty the loaded wag­ons which had left the track.

Sh­effield’s in­ner ring road along­side the sta­tion had to be partly closed to al­low plant with heavy duty vac­u­ums to be parked up, and hoses on ex­tend­able arms were able to reach the stricken ve­hi­cles over the sta­tion wall. Once emp­tied, the wag­ons were lifted by rail-mounted crane.

As well as be­ing a fo­cus for North­ern’s lo­cal ser­vices in South York­shire, Sh­effield is also the main ter­mi­nus of East Mid­lands Rail­way north­bound trains from St Pan­cras In­ter­na­tional and is served by a sub­stan­tial num­ber of CrossCoun­try and Tran­sPen­nine Ex­press ser­vices, all of which were af­fected.

By the week­end of Novem­ber 14/15, fur­ther plat­forms had re­opened but de­lays re­mained to EMR and North­ern trains.

NR com­pleted the re­in­state­ment of track and re­pairs to sig­nalling equip­ment overnight on Novem­ber 16, with the timetable re­turn­ing to nor­mal the fol­low­ing day.

?? TOM INGALL. ?? The view look­ing north from Sh­effield on Novem­ber 11 shows the tipped-over ce­ment wagon as well as the dis­rup­tion caused by the need to close other lines into the sta­tion. The street lights to the left of the train il­lu­mi­nate the city’s in­ner ring road, which had to be par­tially closed to en­able re­cov­ery of the train’s load.
TOM INGALL. The view look­ing north from Sh­effield on Novem­ber 11 shows the tipped-over ce­ment wagon as well as the dis­rup­tion caused by the need to close other lines into the sta­tion. The street lights to the left of the train il­lu­mi­nate the city’s in­ner ring road, which had to be par­tially closed to en­able re­cov­ery of the train’s load.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from UK