This happened Saturday when 4-6-2 34067 'Tangmere' decided to detach its side rod from the crosshead on the mainline out of Waterloo at speed, the rod hit the live rail and blew everything for miles could have been waaay worse but will probably have some reprocussions for mainline steam.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index. ... ine-steam/

Also this video which shows a very odd knocking noise from her 30 minutes before

http://www.britishrailways.tv/train-vid ... mber-2013/

(none of which concerned stay bolts.....phew)

Mike Pannell

Someone on board managed to capture the moment the main rod hit the third rail on camera.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=484820308299480&set=pb.328212407293605.-2207520000.1385397512.&type=3&theater

Most likely action will be that they will test the defective piece, determine the cause of failure, establish guidelines for corrective action and get her back on the road.

The video will come out eventually.
If the 1994 Blue Peter 'wheelslip' incident (where the rods just came apart and injured the engineer) didn't kill mainline steam, I sort of doubt this incident will, either.

The headline mentioned 'nails in the coffin' which I agree is an over dramatization. I think this is a good shake up and that doesn't do any operator any harm, as an operator of mainline Diesel traction and having a near incident years ago with a defective part letting go, I know how it shakes you up and brings you very much into reality, we got away with it fortunately and it made our checks even more detailed than before.

Mike Pannell

The general perspective in the UK and Europe towards heritage railways is significantly different as well. Worse things have happened in recent years-the North Yorkshire Moors Railway accident of 2012 where the volunteer train guard was killed being a prime example.

Railways are quintessentially British-as much so as the Queen's Guard and their seafaring tradition. What is reality for us isn't necessarily reality for them. After all, we cannot run wooden bodied cars on our national rail network under any circumstance and they can (under certain conditions).

Crap happens. Our British cousins understand this as well as anyone else, and that incidents like these are part and parcel of running mainline steam. Main rods came loose back when steam was dominant on UK (and US) rails (and not always because of slipshod maintenance practices, either). As Mr. Walker points out, this incident will be investigated, the cause(es) will be determined, corrective guidelines and action will be implemented, and mainline steam excursions will continue as usual.

That sounds awful. I don't have a single minute of mainline steam experience myself, but what little experience I do have tells me that in the video 30 minutes before, you can obviously tell that something is catastrophically wrong, or about to go wrong. I'm just wondering why they didn't stop to investigate it?

Mike S.

Tangmere/34067, according to my lists, still runs with Bullied oil-bath chain-drive valve gear. There isn't that much to come apart. Can someone who thinks they can hear better than I can explain to me just what we're supposed to be hearing in that cacophony of sound that "isn't right" or whatnot?

You'd have to get yourself a video of a freshly outshopped engine running at speed, listen to a few seconds of it, then listen to that one. There's something rattling as if it's worked loose or breaking.

Once upon the end of daily use of steam, old switch engines could be heard slapping and clanking their way around yards because their brasses were worn out. It's on that order, but louder and, of course, faster and it sounds as if it's up at the front of the engine rather than all over. If you were driving and your car sounded like that, you wouldn't panic, but you'd be uneasy and ready to pull over if it got worse.

Reports have been a bit convoluted, "axel rod" and "connecting rod" used interchangeably....but it sounds to me like the main rod dropped out of the crosshead, in which case the noise would have been the brasses on the wrist pin pounding or the pin slipping out. Or, if it was the big end dropping off the crankpin, the big end brasses pounding. If it was a connecting rod between wheelsets, ditto there depending on the design of the rods, but in addition the possibility of a retainer being pounded off. I've experienced the last situation personally, on a bridge of all places, and it wasn't fun.

Any and all of the above make enough noise to get your attention.

dave

Watch this video of her at speed and listen to the sound she makes and then watch the other one you will have a knocking from the front end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8YhCy7xE-M


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVdUsjmp8oE


Mike Pannell

Mike,

In the second video you posted, is the sound of the problem what I hear start at 00:20?

Yes Ron, it sounds very unusual to me for this class of locomotives

Mike

I wouldn't assume that the crew could have heard anything unusual. The cab of a steam locomotive is like the inside of a prop-driven airplane, neither sound remotely from the inside like they do from the outside as they go by a fixed point.