Can confirm it was close to high tide at the time, that said the depth of water on the weir itself was nothing close to that, beyond the weir it varies starting at 2m

I'm not sure if this is correct. Perhaps its a mis-statement of there being a 4m tidal range that day.

When you have thousands of cubic metres of water in the tidal flow every few hours, a "little" rain doesn't do a whole lot. Rain is not an issue for this viaduct, although it be have for others.

Independent, Thursday September 10 2009

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-1882404.html

[quote=roamling;49312]Independent, Thursday September 10 2009

... that is why the bridge should have been inspected more detailed after the change of sea flow was reported.

[quote=roamling;49313]Eh, the problem was underneath the bridge Mr. Lynch..

they still seem to be refusing to acknowledge lack of action to check the weir, you guys should be nailing them down on that.

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-n...e-1887332.html

and a first glimpse whats going on in the hearing... at least somebody is asking the right questions...

Irish Times, September 16, 2009, 13:06

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...breaking38.htm

PS: on a personal note - I was on the last train northbound before the bridge collapsed and I have no symphathy for the all the excuses Irish Rail has for an answer to all this.

Like it or not, the full safety requirements where discharged by Irish Rail. The bridge was inspected in line with rail industry standards, all the inspections where in date (which is something that would not have been the case in the past). Put simply same viaduct in identical conditions in any well maintained rail network would have met the same fate.

Where the problem lies is in the unique construction of the Malahide viaduct, there are no foundations under the bridge, its built on a pile of rubble effectively and the whole show works on nothing more basic than gravity.

The current presumed nature of the collapse is such that the rubble underneath the pier was pullled out by the water flow from the collapsed weir, until a point where gravity led the pier to fall over and the bridge collapses.

Structurally an inspection even at 6pm on that Friday would have been unlikely to find anything amiss, I've seen a high res photo of the bridge taken at 6:10pm and there isn't a hint of anything wrong, the bridge looked fine. Only an underwater inspection would have revealed the problem, even then it would have been too late, the bridge would collapse in time.

The failure was as a result of Irish Rail not understanding the relationship between the weir, the waterflow and the viaducts construction. Its classic accident territory not putting together all the pieces. Someone somewhere failed to identify the critical nature of the weir

Most of all, finger pointing gets no one to work or home

Hang on, someone paid handsomely to be RESPONSIBLE for safety and inspections needs to be help RESPONSIBLE.

Heads need to roll, the lack of accountability across every aspect of Irish Rail needs to be challenged and if a calamity of this scale fails to hold anyone in Irish Rail accountable, then what the hell do they have to wrong to be actually held RESPONSIBLE?

Problem is the system won't let anyone hang since all the rules where complied with, the safety standards are as good as anywhere else in Europe, but still it went wrong. Had the inspections been out of date, you wouldn't have many senior staff left, if this had happened 10 years ago you would have been lucky to find a record of a bridge inspection and even luckier to find one which was in date.

Irish Rail goofed up since they failed to recognise the special characterisitcs of the Malahide viaduct, they seemed to understand the weir back in the 1960's but forgot about it up until now. Its classic accident stuff, not understanding the entire context

I think we have a right to highlight failures in scrutiny and pre-emptive measures to make 100% sure that the structure was safe. I feel deeply worried about the fact that people were put to risk because of a lack of full understanding of the interaction of water flows, viaduct constructions etc. The idea of an underwater inspection of a bridge structure that has been reported as possibly critical does not even require a fundamental understanding of the full context of these issues, it requires just a bit a common sense to make sure all aspects of the inspection have been ticked (and a bridge does not stop at the water level). It would have been a different case if the bridge had just collapsed without warning, but in this case there was a chance to prevent it and that is the point I want to highlight. There needs to be accountability within Irish Rail for these failures.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...k-1888764.html

Independent September 17 2009

There is too much grandstanding and playing blame-game going on here.

The politicians should be told that until the Railway Safety Authority has reported, they should exercise more restraint in what they say. It's pathetic how they play to the gallery. Some of the individuals have made extremely vindictive comments about people in other contexts and I would not trust them an inch.

Why does there have to be such an atmosphere of witch-hunt about this? Loking for someone to hang, or fire or whatever? There may well be a reason to fire someone, but we will have to wait for the RSA report before we can pass such a judgement. There is even the possibility that this was a very freak one-off, which no-one could reasonaby foresee without the benefit of that marvellous gift: hindsight.

Look at the aviation industry, which is surely the leader in good safety oversight. The emphasis in accident and indcident enquiries in aviation is to learn lessons that prevent future accidents. Whether anyone gets sacked or disciplined might of course happen, but the main emphasis is on finding the truth and learning lessons for the future.

Correct. Only when the investigation follows a "no blame culture" will anyone get to the root cause of any incident, thereby enabling new checks and balances to be put in place to prevent a repitition. When the nature of an enquiry is to find a scapegoat; mouths quickly close, memories become patchy and the guy who doesn't have teflon shoulders takes the bullet.

The Transport Committee transcripts are here: http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate...Node=H3&Page=1 (Moderators please move if this fits better into another thread.)

Thanks for the link! Valuable information to read.

As a previous poster has pointed out, there is far too much point scoring going on by some of our public representitives

The line of questioning at the joint committee was useless, no new information what so ever surfaced and indeed many of the questions where based on flawed information

The RAIU guy played it by the book, investigation ongoing, we will publish a report, we will do so as quickly as possible

Who do Irish Rail send out but Kenny, Lynch and Fearn, no sign of the chief engineer or safety officer.

There is no question that something went wrong and in hindsight it should never have happened.

opening sometime november - ahead off schedule?
 

There is a bridge again, the collasped pier is back and there is a new deck bridging the gap.

There is more of the deck to go in and from there the track and signalling equipment has to be restored.

There are works ongoing on the other piers and the weir as well.

The line could be open within the next few weeks, well inside the 3 month target

http://www.irishrail.ie/news_centre/news.asp?action=view&news_id=541

That's pretty impressive to get the thing completed within 3 months.

I would have been in the very skeptical camp (i'm not an engineer) as things never seem to get delivered on time in this country.

Now if only the country weren't bankrupt and the price of 30 odd Interconnectors weren't being spent on NAMA, then we could set these lads straight to work after the viaduct is complete.

Rail line to reopen just under three months after Malahide viaduct collapse
 

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...257457201.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...breaking20.htm

"Passengers safety has been paramount in repairs"
 

Fingal Independent, Nov. 04 2009

http://www.fingal-independent.ie/new...s-1932009.html

Interesting enough maintaining the bus corridor is mentioned. As I pointed out before there is interest among previous train users to get the bus if available. Last week households in Lusk also recieved a flyer where a local FF TD asked for responses about the prefered options of travel. There might be more to come.

By train is a fraction of the distance, although presumably the bus is point to point. The (slightly expensive) solution is a second station for Malahide.

Bridge not inspected in week up to collapse
 

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...e-1925944.html

Rail services to resume across Malahide viaduct from Monday
 

IT got its kph and mph confused

Irish Rail still work with mph, speed limits will be 25mph, 50mph and 90mph. Not to do with the bridge really, the track takes time to settle

Commuters 'to stay with the bus'
 

Independent, Sunday November 15 2009

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-n...s-1944151.html

Competition is king.

PS: and the €2 it costs me to pay for the parking actually pays the bus ticket when using a travel 90 ticket (one way). So if IE has better plan how to manage this let me know... maybe the first step would be to scrap the parking charges and lower the train fare.

We got you covered

http://www.railusers.ie/news/news.ph...009&no=14.html

Excellent :D

Irish Times are running it

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...breaking29.htm

IT story on the extended 33 bus services that will remain.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...breaking26.htm

Given the fact that the viaduct has collapsed, IE did a good job to get in back open within 3 months, but how many passengers have they lost because of it?

No question three months was a serious miracle, though exactly in line with our initial estimate.

Problem is the bus has proven itself to be an excellent option for many (though not all) Irish Rail have to raise their game.

The train is too slow, too expensive and lacks accountability when it goes wrong (note not if, but when). People are entitled to value for money, Irish Rail could provide this if they made the effort to meet the promises given in the past.

Tee hee hee

off irishtimes.com
 

90mph??? don't think i've even been on a train doing that speed over that section!!