On 29 May, 19:51, Martin D. Pay
wrote:
In message , at 10:07:32
on Thu, 29 May 2008, Richard J. remarked:
'The contractors were jacking up the bridge. The jack collapsed and

And this was happening while trains were running underneath ?!?!?!

Indeed. I have no doubt that HSE will have some fairly robust
views on this, once the investigation has finished - and they
tend not to take prisoners...

Indeed not.....it was reported above that the actual jacking had been
done *overnight*....other work with bearings was going on (not that
this actually caused the bridge to drop necessarily - the reason will
come out eventually) at the tie thatthe jack gave out on onecorner of
the bridge) and, according to the NR statement, "a concrete
slab" (that's 'a', i.e. ONE) fell off the bridge onto the track.

One unconfirmed report has that it broke the cab windscreen, but I
doubt it, personally - just like a passenger being quoted as saying
that there was debris all over the track.....yes, dear, it'scalled
ballast!


With the info currently available, I see no reason why they couldn't
have been working where they were. There's no proof yet that whatever
they were doing actually caused the problem anyway.

How much damage was done to the OHLE? There must have been
*some*, surely?

From one slab?....quite possibly, none at all.