On Thu, 29 May 2008 12:35:41 +0100, Roland Perry
mangled uncounted electrons thus:

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...

The London Lite was speculating this evening, in the rather vague
way that free papers tend to when they don't have any real facts,
that Network Rail allowed the work to be carried out over live
tracks because they were unwilling to close LST again due to the
criticism over the closures that have already taken place on
every (so far!) Bank Holiday this year.

Not mind you that I put any faith in what LL says about anything
(except their quite true claim that the ink doesn't come off on
your hands ^_^ ) !

debris from the supports

Which some reports are calling "scaffolding", perhaps.

for the bridge fell onto the tracks. We are investigating
the incident,' he said."

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

Martin D. Pay
Who was evicted from my service from Chelmsford at Stratford this
morning. Fortunately the DLR came to my rescue!

In message , at 19:51:31 on
Thu, 29 May 2008, Martin D. Pay
remarked:
Which some reports are calling "scaffolding", perhaps.

for the bridge fell onto the tracks. We are investigating
the incident,' he said."

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

That's why I'm sceptical it was scaffolding that fell on the line (some
reports say scaffolding fell on the *bridge* and made it collapse, which
seems even less likely).

And Mr Thant didn't report seeing anything odd, and I hope he wouldn't
have missed scaffolding on the line.

They seem to have got things running again as soon as this afternoon, so
I suspect the only thing that fell to the track level was a few concrete
blocks (which missed the OHL) - and the Network Rail complaint seems to
confirm this.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:51:31 on
Thu, 29 May 2008, Martin D. Pay remarked:
Which some reports are calling "scaffolding", perhaps.

for the bridge fell onto the tracks. We are investigating
the incident,' he said."

Isnt this why we have factory/hse inspectors - to shut down any
dangerous practice... Surely jacking up bridges while high speed trains
qualifies as dangerous....

mf

On Thu, 29 May 2008 21:23:32 +0100, Mystery Flyer
wrote:

Isnt this why we have factory/hse inspectors - to shut down any
dangerous practice... Surely jacking up bridges while high speed trains
qualifies as dangerous....

That it might, but calling EMUs at 40mph "high speed" is pushing it.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

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.

Chris wrote:

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!

Sorry, but I personally counted 4 slabs around the the 19.15 Southend
departure (I was on the 19.18 Harwich alongside). At lest one of those
was mangled, which I inferred had been struck by that Train.

--
Peter Byrne Still Fading and Dying....

Replace Junk with Pete to send an e-mail