Watch out for flying containers
March 3rd, 2008If you are taking your kid out to watch the trains go by, keep your eyes skinned, else you might get squashed by one of those giant containers. Yesterday no fewer than five of them were blown off a train on the west coast line in the Cumbrian countryside. The driver did not know anything had happened. He drove on blissfully until he was stopped when he got to Lockerbie! ‘Sorry, mate, five of your trailers are missing.’
My brother who has become something of an expert on such hazards, thanks to a lifelong addiction to caravans, has already dashed off a letter to Gwyneth Dunwoody, chairman of the House of Commons Transport committee, urging her to take the rail companies to task. He knows only too well how a gale can turn a caravan into a weapon of mass destruction. He wants to know what the companies do about coping with high wind velocity.
His blog, caravanaccidents, is concerned with heavy goods vehicles and trailers as well as caravans on the roads. But when it comes to dealing with high winds many of the same factors apply to all those high lorries and trailers which fill our railways. In gale force winds they are all in serious danger of being blown off course unless they slow down.
So what we need to know is how do the train drivers assess wind velocity and what instructions do they have with regard to the maximum speed they should travel at in severe winds. When my brother finds the answers I post them here.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
2 Responses to “Caravan snaking accidents”
Peter W Jones AMInstP Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
FLYING RAIL CONTAINERS
It seems to me that the authorities just hope this problem will go away.
However, if an express train had run into the fallen containers there could have been a horrendous collision with many fatalities and serious injuries.
It may well be the case in this instance that the containers were not secured to the rail way wagons correctly, but this does not excuse the fact that it is possible that no one has thought to find out the strength of the wind which would have over turned the wagons had they been correctly loaded.
The same thing applies every time an HGV is blown over, to say nothing of problems arising from snaking and jack knifing which can be set up by the effect of strong cross winds on a trailer.
I have made some crude estimates of the air speed at which an hgv trailer is likely to become subject to snaking. My reason for doing this is to help convince HGV drivers and others who may be affected that this must be expertly assessed.
See my above mentioned web log for further details.
http://www.20six.co.uk/roadtrafficaccidents
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The Hon Mrs Dunwoody MP
Chairperson of the Select Committee on Transport.
House of Commons
I have today (5-3-08) received by ordinary post a reply from the above.
I hope to be printing this in the Daily Novel, if the editor permits such things, providing that I do not encounter any technical snags in the process. I still have a great deal of “catching up” to do with regard to the developments in communication technology that have taken place since I retired from the ‘day job” (Head of Science in a Birmingham Comprehensive School).
I also propose to print a copy of the letter I sent to Mrs Dunwoody, with my further comments.