The Last 125

[yorkie]

With the size of the forces involved in a collision, there isn't much that could protect. The driver is at the front of a vehicle weighing 460 tonnes and often travelling at over 100mph.

These 125 HST trains have the weight at the ends. the APT was designed with the weight in the middle. I think in modern trains the weight is largely underneath. Where the weight is has been a factor - a weight at the front protects the remainder of the train. At Polmont the train was a push-pull with one driving car, at the front or the rear. When the train hit the cow the driving car was at the rear. It was considered that if the driving cars had been at the front the train may not have derailed.

At Polmont, the train involved was a Mark 3 Push-Pull set, with a class 47 diesel locomotive pushing (in that direction of travel) and a converted Mark 2 Brake Second Class carriage with a cab bolted to one end as a Driving Trailer. The Driving Trailer was only marginally heavier than a standard carriage and "took off" when it hit the cow - part of the cow got stuck under the front wheels. Those trains were temporarily removed from service while a suitable solution to the problem was found. The eventual solution was an amount of steel ballast under the brake area behind the cab, and a dirty great obstacle deflector under the cab to push stuff out of the way.

[Jaded]

I thought I might have had the terminology not quite right, thanks.

[pcolbeck]

There are events that really telescope time and this is one of them. Never mind the engine "whistle", what about the stink from the brakes?

Oh yes as a frequent York to London user of these for twenty years you soon learnt to not sit where the smell of the brakes seeped into the carriage.

[ravenbait]

Stonehaven - isn't there doubt over the inspection of drainage system around the track?

I think the most I could possibly say is that the area is difficult to access. I don't know what the inspection regime was for the trackside drainage there, nor how the drainage could or did contribute to the incident.

Sam

[yorkie]

There are events that really telescope time and this is one of them. Never mind the engine "whistle", what about the stink from the brakes?

Oh yes as a frequent York to London user of these for twenty years you soon learnt to not sit where the smell of the brakes seeped into the carriage.

Just be grateful that one of the major passenger experience malfunctions was discovered fairly early on in their East Coast Main Line career, in fact on one of the later test runs before entry into service according to my father (who was one of the BR Test and Acceptance Engineers for the Prototype HST and covered the Production Sets entry into service for the ECML).


They discovered that when there was a cross wind and the train was travelling at 125mph, the toilet at the rear of each coach flushed UPWARDS!!!    My father's colleague discovered this when he went to the loo somewhere around Newark and returned saying "You'd better come and look at this!!" It was apparently due to the complicated interplay of air pressures under the vehicle! They quickly knocked together an air baffle to direct the air around the effluent exit pipe downwards, tested it and rolled it out across the fleet! Phew! 

[yorkie]

Stonehaven - isn't there doubt over the inspection of drainage system around the track?

I think the most I could possibly say is that the area is difficult to access. I don't know what the inspection regime was for the trackside drainage there, nor how the drainage could or did contribute to the incident.

Sam

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch's Interim Report into the Carmont accident makes quite interesting reading, all that information is in there (and more). The full report will be published in due course, but usually takes around 12 to 15 months to produce.

[hatler]

There are events that really telescope time and this is one of them. Never mind the engine "whistle", what about the stink from the brakes?

Oh yes as a frequent York to London user of these for twenty years you soon learnt to not sit where the smell of the brakes seeped into the carriage.

Just be grateful that one of the major passenger experience malfunctions was discovered fairly early on in their East Coast Main Line career, in fact on one of the later test runs before entry into service according to my father (who was one of the BR Test and Acceptance Engineers for the Prototype HST and covered the Production Sets entry into service for the ECML).


They discovered that when there was a cross wind and the train was travelling at 125mph, the toilet at the rear of each coach flushed UPWARDS!!!    My father's colleague discovered this when he went to the loo somewhere around Newark and returned saying "You'd better come and look at this!!" It was apparently due to the complicated interplay of air pressures under the vehicle! They quickly knocked together an air baffle to direct the air around the effluent exit pipe downwards, tested it and rolled it out across the fleet! Phew! 

I recall Private Eye reporting that problem on in-service sets under the headline "Flying Bananas".

Another limitation (as reported to me by my cousin, who was then some sort of postmaster) was that the access doors for the luggage/mail area, combined with the schedule, meant that it wasn't possible to get all the post in and all the post out before the train had to leave. A major source of irritation for the Royal Mail.

[FifeingEejit]

With the size of the forces involved in a collision, there isn't much that could protect. The driver is at the front of a vehicle weighing 460 tonnes and often travelling at over 100mph.

These 125 HST trains have the weight at the ends. the APT was designed with the weight in the middle. I think in modern trains the weight is largely underneath. Where the weight is has been a factor - a weight at the front protects the remainder of the train. At Polmont the train was a push-pull with one driving car, at the front or the rear. When the train hit the cow the driving car was at the rear. It was considered that if the driving cars had been at the front the train may not have derailed.

The carriages on the 125s weren't built with crumple zones. Modern carriages are. However the carriages on a 125 were inherently safer than most of their predecessors, which had multiple doors and concertinaed up in a collision.

The best way to save lives is to engineer crashes and derailments out of the system.

Stonehaven - isn't there doubt over the inspection of drainage system around the track?

Polmont IIRC is the reason why so much of the Pendolinos driving carriages are taken up with functional stuff, no passengers in leading vehicles over 100mph.
The only diseasel/electric locos I can think of with any pretence of driver protection in an accident are the EE ones with noses.

The RAIBs interim report on Carmont is available on their website

[Cudzoziemiec]

IETs have passengers in leading vehicles.

[TimC]

Notwithstanding their safety limitations, i always enjoyed travelling on HSTs. I was based at Linton-on-Ouse when they first came into service, and the London-York trains transitioned from Deltics with Mk2D/E coaches to the HST with the deliciously smooth Mk3s.

As an aside, it used to give me a perverse thrill when practising stalling in the Jet Provost using the Vale of York mainline as an orientation line feature and the HSTs would (just) overtake us.

[drossall]

They were still being phased in on the East Coast Main Line when I was a student at Leeds, 1978-81. I remember getting caught out. I was so used to trains with proper guards vans that I never thought about it. Headed up to Newcastle to see my then girlfriend (now wife), who was studying there. Turned up at the station to get the train back. It was a 125 and wouldn't take my bike, which I think I had ridden up that weekend.

Well I wasn't abandoning the bike, so I turned up back on the door-step of the mutual friend and fellow-student where I had been staying, begging for an extra night, and missed at least a morning's lectures while I waited for a "proper" train.

But after that I did a fair few trips up and down that line. Even more so when I started work in Hertfordshire and she was still in Newcastle.

[FifeingEejit]

IETs have passengers in leading vehicles.

Sorry that was half the info, the layout of the pendolino leading/trailing carriages was the trade off eventually agreed to along with the significantly better crashworthiness.
I note that in the IET the same amount of buffer is provided to 1st class but not standard

[IanN]

Notwithstanding their safety limitations, I always enjoyed travelling on HSTs.

Agreed. Much as I may have preferred double headed 50s back in the 1980's, I have fond memories of getting late trains back to Plymouth about 20 years ago. The train would be mostly empty, over Dainton, past Totnes and the driver opened it up...


But it's mostly that the more recent cross country and GWR trains are utter w@nk with no leg room, shoulder room, bike room, functioning toilets half the time.. etc

[Mr Larrington]

I used to know a chap whose father used to drive them on the Western Region route 'twixt Cornwall and That London.  The old boy claimed they used regularly to open the taps if a representative of The Man wasn’t around, and wind them up to 140+ mph.

[rogerzilla]

There were speed limiters fitted to all of them eventually.  The fastest I saw one go was only 127mph (they hit full speed between Swindon and Didcot, as the line is very straight).

FWIW, it was believed in railway circles for 150 years that you couldn't safely propel a train at high speed from the rear.  Push/pull steam units, with a driving cab in an autocoach, were common but were very sedate.  Eventually, testing (by BR, for the Class 91/IC225, I think) showed this was all bollocks.  At model train scale, pushing lighter carriages does indeed lead to more derailments but, at full size and weight, it doesn't.  An IC225 is being pushed half the time, and driven from the DVT (driving van trailer, not deep vein thrombosis).

The unluckiest Class 91 has just been scrapped; it was involved in both the Hatfield and Great Heck disasters.  Neither were due to any fault with the locomotive.

[TimC]

I used to know a chap whose father used to drive them on the Western Region route 'twixt Cornwall and That London.  The old boy claimed they used regularly to open the taps if a representative of The Man wasn’t around, and wind them up to 140+ mph.

Didn't an HST set an official world record at 146mph? Ah yes - here it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterCity_125

148mph.

[TimC]

IETs have passengers in leading vehicles.

Sorry that was half the info, the layout of the pendolino leading/trailing carriages was the trade off eventually agreed to along with the significantly better crashworthiness.
I note that in the IET the same amount of buffer is provided to 1st class but not standard

APT-E had passenger-carrying leading and trailing cars.

[Jaded]

Yes. They had to put the two power cars in the middle because they couldn't run high voltage cables along the train, AIUI. Which meant two of everything like buffets on board.

[Regulator]

I note that none of the train nerds in that report are social distancing or wearing appropriate face coverings.  Will we end up with a '125 Surge'?

[grams]

I note that none of the train nerds in that report are social distancing or wearing appropriate face coverings.  Will we end up with a '125 Surge'?

Are you talking about the report from May 2019?

[Regulator]

Ah - missed the date.