wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Paul Scott) wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
rth.li...
On Wed, 18 Aug 2010, martin wrote:

On Aug 13, 12:00 pm, Mizter T wrote:
On Aug 13, 11:23 am, Paul wrote:

Sounds like a serious screw up, thankfully no-one got hurt. RAIB
will of course be involved.

The RAIB have announced their investigation, with some preliminary
details and a picture of the unit involved:


http://www.raib.gov.uk/publications/...gister/100813_
highgate_runaway.cfm

Thanks for that, i'm sure we all look forward to reading the report.

Something that I don't think had previously been released:

The crew of the grinding unit, who had no means of re-applying the
brake, jumped off the unit as it passed through Highgate station.

J. Jesus Krispy Kreme Christ on a Borisbike!

'no means of re-applying the brake' is a rather frightening phrase. I
would hope trains were not constructed in such a way that this could
ever be the case, but they are evidently not. Indeed, AIUI, air brakes
work by having a reservoir on each car that drives brake application
when the pressure in the brake pipe drops, but if there is no
compressor in action, as here, then this reservoir will be empty, and
there will be no pressure to apply the brakes even in the absence of
brake pipe pressure. Seems like a bit of a loophole in the
fail-safety, but i'm not sure what else you can do. Presumably a
spring does not supply enough force to apply the brakes!

Why assume it even has a conventional railway air brake system.
We're talking about a large item of yellow plant brought in to the
system that is designed to work independently?

Reports earlier that it was an 'engineering train' and pictures of
normal LU battery locos aren't necessarily helping as far as I can
see. It's just as possible that it has never been designed to form
part of a 'train' as everyone is assuming...

The RAIB site has a picture of the train.

Has that just been added today? I'm sure I didn't see it originally - but
(blown up) it doesn't look much like a normal railway coupling does it -
more like what you see on the back of a truck...

Paul S

In message , Paul Scott
writes

Has that just been added today? I'm sure I didn't see it originally -
but (blown up) it doesn't look much like a normal railway coupling does
it - more like what you see on the back of a truck...

The photo's too small to be sure, but it looks like one of TfL's three
Plasser machines, that are equipped with buckeye couplers - not the
standard Wedgelock couplers used on passenger stock, and nor does it
have conventional drawhooks for emergency use, like most of the
engineering stock.

--
Paul Terry