In article , Christine
writes
Am I reading this right? Reduced speed because of the chance on a blow
causing a fastening to break and a buckle occurring. What utter
uninformed trash! If a buckle is likely to occur it is where there is
a weakness in the ballast formation and then both rails buckle out
with sleepers in tacked.

I'd forgotten about that case - the whole rail-and-sleeper arrangement
buckling en masse - but you do also get the rails breaking out from the
sleepers leaving the line out of gauge. I believe this happened on
Western Region in the 1960s when the rail joints closed up through
over-expansion.

I don't dispute what you're saying about buckling, though.

Hope you got through the TDM failure in the Hitchin/Stevenage area
better than I did. Sat at Welwyn North Tunnel for 50 minutes.

What TDM failure? We arrived KGX on-time.

This evening, though, we were held at somewhere between Knebworth and
Langley Junction for over an hour. [1707 ex-KGX, arrived HUN appx 1858.]

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Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
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