Malahide Media Coverage

[Colm Moore]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...reaking68.html

Erosion caused viaduct collapse

A viaduct on one of the country’s busiest railway lines collapsed because workmen carrying out safety checks did not know how to properly assess it, a report into the incident revealed today.

For more than 40 years repair work focused on pillars holding up the track over the Broadmeadow estuary, north Dublin, rather than on the causeway they were built on.

Irish Rail also said an engineer who checked the viaduct near Malahide days before its near catastrophic failure only looked at the piers and not underwater foundations being eroded.

Company spokesman Barry Kenny said significant grouting work to protect the superstructure took place in 1967 up to 2m below sea level.

But investigators warned that since then new engineers joining the company did not know there were two separate parts to the viaduct — piers resting on a causeway were not embedded in the bedrock.

Fergus O’Dowd, Fine Gael transport spokesman, accused Irish Rail of jeopardising hundreds of passengers.

“How are we supposed to have faith in the rest of the rail network, when Iarnrod Eireann’s excuse for this fiasco is that key staff members had retired?” he asked.

Tommy Broughan, Labour transport spokesman, said the investigation had uncovered astonishing gaps in maintenance work.

“The near-disastrous event raised serious question marks about the safety procedures and culture at Iarnrod Eireann and, in particular, at the Railway Safety Commission,” Mr Broughan said.

Both opposition TDs called for Irish Rail chiefs to be called before the Oireachtas Transport Committee to explain the incomplete maintenance checks.

Rail chiefs had been warned about the state of the viaduct by the Malahide Sea Scouts days before the accident on Friday August 21st last year after a canoeist saw a stone washed away.

“However a misunderstanding appears to have developed so that the engineer delegated to inspect the viaduct on 18th August was looking primarily for cracks or missing stones in the pier structure rather than in its foundations,” the investigation found.

The driver of a commuter train spotted the collapsed bridge at about 6pm and raised the alarm.

Irish Rail said the engineer sent to check the viaduct days before it fell into the sea found dressed stonework needed repointing and some cracked stones on a number of piers.

None of the faults spotted were considered serious and the engineer thought they explained the erosion warning from sea scouts.

The line remained closed for three months after the incident.

Irish Rail also denied it had been warned about serious erosion on the viaduct in 2006.

The company said specialist divers had reported the piers were subject to scouring — where water digs out a channel — and that underwater checks should be done every six years.

It claimed its own investigation after the accident uncovered the true extent of the erosion.

Safety improvements have been carried out including a bridge monitoring system on the Malahide Viaduct and piers have been retrofitted with piles in the bedrock; A bridge inspection list has been drawn up for engineers to check for scouring and underwater erosion. It is due to be complete by the end of next month.

Nine recommendations have also been put forward to improve safety on the railways.

They include flood and tidal warning arrangements, using information from Met Eireann and the Coast Guard; a “handover” process to ensure knowledge is not lost when staff move on; improved processes for dealing with information from the public; and the installation of monitoring/warning equipment to structures susceptible to scour should be extended.

PA

[dowlingm]

anyone care to speculate why Tommy Broughan took an obvious swipe at the RSC?

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by dowlingm

anyone care to speculate why Tommy Broughan took an obvious swipe at the RSC?

Because they are meant to stop IE from being so forgetful they failed in their job to supervise Irish Rail.

The RAIU report will be fun for all parties

[roamling]

Just for the record...

"Rail engineers 'did not know' how to inspect faulty viaduct"
Irish Independent, Friday March 12 2010

By Paul Melia

Friday March 12 2010

IARNROD Eireann engineers "misunderstood" a crucial warning which could have prevented the collapse of the Malahide viaduct.

The revelation came after the Irish Independent yesterday published details of an internal investigation into the incident which put the lives of 10,000 commuters at risk.

It concluded that one of the country's busiest rail lines fell into the sea because the semi-state company forgot how it was constructed.

The report also found engineers failed to inspect the foundations of the structure -- despite a warning received just days before the viaduct collapsed. Local sea scouts reported that rocks at the base of the viaduct had been washed away.

But instead engineers inspected support pillars which were in no danger of collapsing.

They looked for cracks or missing stones in the pier structure just days before the Malahide viaduct fell into the sea, the internal company report into the accident found.

"During the week before the collapse, a group leader of Malahide Sea Scouts observed that a rock at the base of pier 4 had been washed away and contacted Iarnrod Eireann on August 17 to report this," it said.

"A misunderstanding appears to have developed so that the engineer delegated to inspect the viaduct was looking primarily for cracks or missing stones in the pier structure rather than in its foundations . . . therefore this visual inspection did not lead engineers to question the stability or the structural integrity of the viaduct."

The report also revealed workmen carrying out safety checks did not know how to properly assess the structure because the knowledge had been lost over time -- because safety inspectors had retired or moved to other positions.

This information was also not passed on to colleagues, despite 10,000 commuters a day using the line.

On August 21 last year, erosion caused a supporting pillar -- pier 4 -- to collapse into the sea as a packed commuter train passed over it.

Massive potential loss of life was only averted because train driver Keith Farrelly used his emergency training to coast the train over the embankment.

For more than 40 years, maintenance had been carried out on the pillars holding up the track rather than on the causeway it was built on.

Grouting work had been carried out on the causeway in 1967 to "bind" the structure together, and since then the focus has been on maintaining the support pillars.

Accusations

The revelations led to accusations last night that the company had put passenger safety at risk. Fine Gael transport spokesman Fergus O'Dowd accused the company of a "deliberate cover-up".

"Iarnrod Eireann is guilty of a serious cover-up," he told the Irish Independent. "The company told the Oireachtas Transport Committee that the viaduct had been given a clean bill of health in 2006. This was not true.

"How are we supposed to have faith in the rest of the rail network, when Iarnrod Eireann's excuse for this fiasco is that key staff members had retired?"

Labour Party transport spokesman Tommy Broughan called on Transport Minister Noel Dempsey to urgently publish the full report into the collapse. "The near-disastrous event raises serious question marks about the safety procedures and culture at Iarnrod Eireann and, in particular, at the Railway Safety Commission," he said.

Iarnrod Eireann last night said its investigation had uncovered the true extent of the erosion.

- Paul Melia

Irish Independent

[Colm Moore]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...266107766.html

Viaduct was not sunk in bedrock as expected

FIONA GARTLAND

IARNRÓD Éireann staff maintaining a viaduct in north Dublin did not “appreciate” that the structure was sitting on a man-made causeway instead of being sunk into the bedrock, a report carried out by the rail company has found.

A major accident was narrowly avoided last August when a section of the Broadmeadow Viaduct which crosses the Malahide Estuary collapsed moments after a commuter train passed over it. The line, which links Dublin to Belfast, was closed for three months and cost €4 million to repair.

The report, which was independently chaired by John Buxton, a chartered civil engineer, also said an engineer sent to examine the viaduct a week before the collapse misunderstood the concerns raised by the Malahide Sea Scouts.

The report said the structure of the viaduct was unusual because the piers holding it up did not extend down into the bedrock of the sea. Instead, they sat into a manmade causeway made of large stone blocks which rested on the bed of the estuary. This made the piers vulnerable to erosion.

It said in 1967 grouting was carried out on the causeway and it was believed this would reduce the need for ongoing maintenance.

Since then, engineers had focused on the foundations of the piers, replacing stone blocks to protect the piers, but not the entire causeway.

“It was no longer appreciated that the structure as a whole comprised two separate components: a causeway/weir and a viaduct,” the report said.

The importance of maintaining the causeway “was no longer fully appreciated”. In the months prior to the collapse, the channel between pier 4 and pier 5 deepened and the flow became ever stronger with standing waves, the report found. Eventually, pier 4 became undermined and collapsed.

On August 17th, the week before the collapse, a group leader of Malahide Sea Scouts noticed a rock at the base of pier 4 had been washed away and contacted Iarnród Éireann.

But “a misunderstanding appears to have developed” so that the engineer looked primarily for cracks or missing stones in the pier structure rather than in its foundations, the report said. He found some faults in stonework, but none were of a serious structural nature.

The report also found climatic, oceanographic and hydrological changes over recent decades contributed to the erosion. It commended the actions of the train driver, Keith Farrelly, for his quick thinking in placing his power controller into the “coast” setting, which reduced the force acting on the collapsing viaduct as the train passed over it. The signalman was also commended.

The report made a number of recommendations, including that a handover process be put in place to ensure knowledge is not lost when staff move or retire. Yesterday, Iarnród Éireann denied suggestions it had been warned in a report in 2006 that the estuary was prone to serious erosion.

The report, carried out by independent specialist divers, did not state that there was any reason for concern about scour at that time, but did recommend underwater examinations be carried out every six years, a spokesman said. He added the divers could not have known the piers were not sunk into the bedrock because Iarnród Éireann had not told them.

The organisation has said it has carried out a number of improvements recommended in the report including replacing pier 4 and retro-fitting other piers with piled foundations; installing a bridge monitoring system on the viaduct and reviewing other bridges susceptible to scour, including the Rogerstown Viaduct, on the same line.

Opposition spokesmen on transport, Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd and Labour Party TD Tommy Broughan, called on Iarnród Éireann and the Minister for Transport to come before the Oireachtas transport committee.

“A culture of secrecy and complacency has flourished in Iarnród Éireann for far too long,” Mr O’Dowd said.

Photo: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...66107766_1.jpg Malahide Sea Scouts in Broadmeadow Estuary causeway days before Broadmeadow Viaduct collapsed. Iarnród Éireann's report into the collapse found that an engineer sent to examine the viaduct a week before the collapse misunderstood the concerns raised by the sea scouts

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...266107774.html

Viaduct report: Findings and recommendations

Staff maintaining the Malahide estuary viaduct did not know its piers were not sunk into the ground, but were sitting on a man-made causeway.

Maintenance work was only carried out on the bases of the pier and not on the causeway itself.

Malahide Sea Scouts warned Iarnród Éireann a week before the viaduct collapsed that they had seen a rock at the base of one of the piers being washed away.

The engineer who received the sea scouts’ complaint thought they were referring to cracks and pointing on the pier above the water.

Climatic, oceanographic and hydrological changes contributed to the erosion of the causeway and the collapse of the viaduct.

The report recommended a handover process should be put in place to ensure knowledge is not lost when staff move or retire.

The report also noted the process for dealing with observations from the public should be documented and unified across the organisation.

It recommended a number of improvement works on the viaduct and on monitoring systems for all such bridges, which Iarnród Éireann has said it has completed or is in the process of completing.

[Colm Moore]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...266294150.html

Rail staff unaware of article on Malahide viaduct
PAUL CULLEN

IRISH RAIL says its maintenance staff were unaware of a technical paper published in 2000 which documented the structure of the Malahide viaduct that collapsed last August just after a commuter train passed over it.

The company’s report on the incident, published last week, says staff did not “appreciate” that the structure was sitting on a man-made causeway instead of being sunk into the bedrock.

Since the 1960s, repair work focused on pillars holding up the track over the Broadmeadow estuary, north Dublin, rather than on the causeway they were built on, the report said. New engineers joining the company did not know there were two separate parts to the viaduct.

However, it has since emerged that an article on the Malahide viaduct published in the Irish Rail Records Society journal in 2000 documents the history and structure of the viaduct. The article was written by Oliver Doyle, at the time a senior manager in Iarnród Éireann, though not in maintenance.

Mr Doyle’s paper details the scouring effect of tides in the estuary and the efforts made over the years to counteract erosion. It also recounts how the viaduct was maliciously damaged during the Civil War. Asked about the article, a spokesman for Iarnród Éireann said yesterday that knowledge about the structure of the viaduct had been lost over time.

Mr Doyle’s paper had appeared in a railway “enthusiasts’” magazine and maintenance staff remained unaware of it.

After last year’s incident, the line, which links Dublin to Belfast, was closed for three months and cost €4 million to repair.

Last week’s report from Iarnród Éireann will be followed by a report from the Rail Accident Investigation Unit later this year.

[Mark Gleeson]

I have a copy even of the journal with the viaduct piece in it and it is extremely detailed.

The IRRS journal is common sight within IE after all most of the articles are written by senior IE engineers who naturally get sent a copy when they are published, even the RPA had the current edition on the coffee table in reception in Parkgate Street last time I was in.

[Colm Moore]

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0324/rail.html

Commission's report on viaduct collapse sought
Wednesday, 24 March 2010 16:28

Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd has called for the publication of a report by the Railway Safety Commission into the collapse of the Malahide Viaduct.

During Ministers Questions, Deputy O'Dowd said the Government had promised to make the Commission operate under the Freedom of Information Act, but it was refusing to do so.

He said the Irish Rail attitude to the affair was shameful, disgraceful and self-serving.

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said he could not commit to furnishing the deputy with the report at this stage as it may form part of the investigation into the incident.

Minister Dempsey said he agreed there should be maximum information available as long as it did not prejudice the investigation.

Labour TD Tommy Broughan said there were questions to be answered about the Railway Safety Commission.

He said Railway Safety was subject to the same kind of light touch regulation as the banking industry.

[Mark Gleeson]

Of course the RSC are being unhelpful, they aren't carrying out the investigation, the rail accident investigation unit are!