13/09/2017 Derailment Dun Laoghaire

[Mark Gleeson]

Derailment at Dun Laoghaire this evening, all services suspended

Do not expect services to resume till at least tomorrow

[Mark Gleeson]

1645 Howth to Bray derailed on the points facing platform 3 at Dun Laoghaire

It is reported that these points had problems earlier this evening and that this was the first train to pass through

There is evidence that the points where manually clamped in an attempt to fix the points temporality

Approx 1840 passengers in the third coach began to evacuate, this was followed by a small number from coach two, staff witnessing this made no effort to direct passengers to a safe route

Passengers reported no communication on train

[Dublin13]

Woeful standard of informaton, Irish Rail site had no information on it at all an hour after it happened, only on twitter.

[Mark Gleeson]

Progress on site, the rear front coach and front second coach have been rerailed, work now starting on the front of the train.

[Mark Gleeson]

Visually we have been able to account for the clamp on the stock rail, but not on the wedge on the other

[Mark Gleeson]

Fully back up running this morning

Appears a new stretcher bar was installed overnight, which suggests it was either damaged before or during the action

[Mark Gleeson]

Been able to put together the sequence from last night

1722 E926 Dun Laoghaire Howth was unable to depart due to a points issue at Dun Laoghaire

1645 E222 Howth Bray stops at Salthill in the platform, the next signal cannot be cleared as the points failure results in a fail safe condition

Between 1725-1800 efforts made to fix points fault, ultimately this appears to have resulted in use of the clip and scotch solution to clamp the points for the Bray direction (the 'normal' direction in jargon terms). The equipment cabinet in Dun Laoghaire storing the equipment is left open confirming the equipment was used.

1800 Howth Bray train at Salthill is departs and proceeds to Dun Laoghaire under caution, approx 1805 (not 1815 as Irish Rail claimed) this train derails at slow speed over the facing points which previously had been clamped, the train derails leftwards away from northbound trains.

The entire first carriage is derailed, and the front of the second coach, but it is only obvious the front of the first carriage is off the rails.

Approx. 1840 (train now 66 minutes late vs timetable) passengers in the third carriage start to leave the train onto the up track, at 1842 passengers from the second carriage also start to exit, after approx. 3 minutes these doors are closed, this is the first point staff are seen onboard the train

Approx 1850 passengers in the 6th coach start to exit via the side of the train, at an unknown time passengers in the 5th coach also open a door and start to exit over the wall to the former coal yard tramway

Controlled evacuation did not start until after 1900 and was complete by 1945.

A pregnant woman in the third coach required assistance and an ambulance arrived however it arrived at the front and not rear of station. Dublin Fire Brigade evacuated to booking office, where staff were unable to find a key (assuming the staff bathroom), 'casualty' seemed in good spirits

A second ambulance arrived, however no Irish Rail staff at the booking office area to take control and direct, passengers at booking office directed the ambulance crew and others to the incident train, due to an empty train in the northbound platform many initially headed that way instead of the incident train which was just out of view from the booking office

Despite the urgency to get folks evacuated a senior looking member of Irish Rail staff found the time to escort a camera crew from RTE to the train, even though they could have got a perfectly good camera angle from the street

Approx 2000 derailment team arrive to start work

By 2230, only the front of the train remains off the rails

[Dublin13]

What is normal procedure when points fail?

How are they fixed, does someone have to be sent from engineering to fix them or is there something else that can be done?

[Mark Gleeson]

Procedure is normally to run the points back and forward a few times to clear the issue, then get a member of station staff to go trackside and ensure there isn't anything obstructing the points and follow the proceedure

The exact procedure for the exact points in Dun Laoghaire

https://youtu.be/cc3r_q5Vgrs?t=274

If I was a betting man, one of two things happened next

1. A stretcher bar fails and the gauge wideness just enough for the train derail, there was a new stretcher bar installed post incident
2. The lead axle wheel strikes the wooden scotch and lifts it such that the second axle climbs over it

[Inniskeen]

Neither of those things happened - there was some damage done in the course of the derailment, hence the new stretcher bar.

[Dublin13]

Neither of those things happened - there was some damage done in the course of the derailment, hence the new stretcher bar.

So what do you think did happen then seeing as you know that two things didn't?

[Mark Gleeson]

Something went wrong

The RAIU will find it out, somewhere, someone in Irish Rail messed up, thats the only certainty in all this. No third parties involved thats a certainty the derailment happened under degraded operating conditions.

Once that is done the CRR will circle around and decide if legal action or other enforcement measures are to be taken against Irish Rail.

[Mark Gleeson]

This could be interesting also


1658

[Dublin13]

I hope that the investigation really exposes the failings of Irish Rail in this, honestly I just had a look over at Boards and some of the things which I have seen there make me despair, you would think that customers self detraining is seen as the biggest problem in the whole incident rather than the poor comms and also how this incident was to happen in the first place.

I despair about IR really they're just not a customer focused operation in any shape or form when disruption happens and the worst thing is that they don't even want to recognise and address their own failings, no surprise that there are questions about the culture in that company.

[Mark Gleeson]

The lead unit involved in the incident 8108 appears to be parked up in Fairview

We are awaiting confirmation from the RAIU of the investigation

[Mark Gleeson]

RAIU have confirmed a full investigation per EU regulations will take place

"DART Derailment, Dun Laoghaire, 13th September 2017"
https://erail.era.europa.eu/occurrence/IE-5452-24-1/Train-derailment,-13-09-17,-Dun-Laoghaire-(Ireland)/Investigation-details/ERAIL-PUBLIC

[Mark Gleeson]

Internally Irish Rail has categorised this as 'Operator Error - IM'

1665

Points we photographed had not been correctly clamped

http://www.railusers.ie/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1658&d=1505648575

[Jamie2k9]

Report Published.

[Mark Gleeson]

https://www.raiu.ie/download/pdf/170913_ie_a_dart_derailment_dun_laoghaire.pdf

Report confirm points not correctly clamped