Monument to Armagh rail disaster

Sheldons Brain

Monument to Armagh rail disaster, 125 years ago yesterday.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/poignant-monument-to-worst-rail-disaster-unveiled-in-armagh-30350925.html

This was an important point in rail safety, with thing like automatic continuous brake and block signalling being subsequently required.

J Cheever Loophole

A long overdue move this. The memorial is indeed a fitting and poignant reminder.

corktina

The only problem with that article is that the brakes didn't fail, they worked exactly as they were designed to do. What failed was the Railway Company and it's Employees, some of whom should have gone to jail for their criminal stupidity. It's a lovely memorial to those poor people.

Judgement Day

A good book on the accident is J.R.L.Currie's "The Runaway Train: Armagh 1889". There were so many things that went wrong in the operation of the trains on that day. The overloading of a train in relation to the locomotive power, the locking of carriage doors that meant escape was impossible for most, the dividing of a train on an incline, the fixed time operation that meant a second train was allowed follow the special. Fascinating for the student of railway accidents but not so damn amusing if you were caught up in it.

Losty Dublin

corktina wrote: »

The only problem with that article is that the brakes didn't fail, they worked exactly as they were designed to do. What failed was the Railway Company and it's Employees, some of whom should have gone to jail for their criminal stupidity. It's a lovely memorial to those poor people.

The brake did work as intended. Trouble with it was that it was nowhere close to fit for purpose.

I agree 100% with you on the rest.

corktina

that's what I said...

Losty Dublin

corktina wrote: »

that's what I said...

I know. I said that as well except I didn't say it as you said it.

Or something along those lines

corktina

to spell it out to casual readers,

the train was fitted with non-failsafe vacuum brakes. In other words , the loco sucking the air out of the vacuum brake system applied the brakes... uncouple a carriage, and thus the brake pipe, and you release the brakes throughout the train.

This is "simple vacuum braking" . In automatic vacuum brakes, the brakes are released by the vacuum, therefore if you destroy the vacuum, you apply the brakes.

The officials on the ground that day uncoupled part of the train on a steep gradient after the train stalled. The Guard's handbrake (and some stones placed under wheels (!) ) failed to hold the train and it rolled back into the following train which had been allowed to follow the first after a time interval

As a direct result of this tragedy, automatic brakes were made compulsory and a system was made mandatory where (basically) a train had to clear a section before another was allowed to follow. A milestone in railway safety in Britain and Ireland

cml387

Lock, block and brake.