98 April 2019Modern Railways http://www.modern-railways.com
XX Alan Williams
B
ack last summer I told you
about the bridge at Castleton
on my local line to Whitby
that was struck so violently by a
skip lorry that the entire bridge
deck was moved sideways by some
100mm – about four inches in old
money – distorting the track and
rendering the bridge unsafe and
thus closing both the railway and
the road below while Network Rail’s
Orange Army carried out emergency
temporary repairs. After four days the
line reopened to both road and rail
traffic, the latter with a severe speed
restriction pending a more detailed
inspection by NR engineers. There
was major inconvenience both to
the village, because the road is the
only route out to the north without a
massive diversion, and there isn’t even
an alternative pedestrian route, and
because buses had to be provided
to replace all services, including the
school train, significantly lengthening
journey times. It seems the driver of
the offending vehicle subsequently
appeared in court and was fined.
Meanwhile, that more detailed
inspection confirmed what many had
feared – that the stone abutments
and foundations of the 150-year-old
bridge had been disturbed, too. As
a result, ground anchors to reinforce
both bridge abutments are required
and an entirely new bridge deck is
being assembled in a field alongside
the line, which has been built up by
several feet to raise it above the flood
level of the nearby river Esk. The new
structure was scheduled to be lifted
into position to replace the original
during a further two-day closure
of the line at the end of March. But
much more seriously for the village,
the road beneath has been closed
to all but pedestrians since January
while utilities are diverted, those
new ground anchors are installed,
the foundations strengthened and
the stone abutments repaired.
Network Rail tells me that none of
this work would otherwise have been
necessary and was not planned. It
estimates that the final cost, including
compensation and restoration, will
be in the region of £3 million. There
are almost 2,000 bridge bashes
a year – an average of five every
day – costing £23 million a year.
Castleton is clearly going to be an
extreme example, but even so that is
an average of £12,000 per incident.
But why are passengers/taxpayers
picking up the bill for damage caused
by incompetent lorry drivers? NR
says it pursues miscreants and their
insurers to recover costs, but that
it is not easy. That is partly because
neither the police nor the haulage
industry seems to take bridge bashingvery seriously, the former prioritising
reopening the road (never mind the
delay to rail passengers!) while the
latter likes to blame inexperienced
drivers – for which read often poorly
trained, something that seems
bound to get worse given the alleged
shortage of qualified HGV drivers.
As a result, even if they are firmly
identified, bridge bashers rarely
suffer more than a fine for ‘driving
without due care and attention’
and very few are ever disqualified.
Curiously, although the law
defines the maximum permissible
width, length and weight of HGVs,
there appears to be no equivalent
height restriction, although the
law now requires the height of any
vehicle over three metres high,
including any trailer and any load
on it, to be displayed in their cabs.
Most British motorway bridges
allow a clearance of at least 16ft 6in
(just over five metres), but there
are over 1,600 bridges much lower
than this just on the designated
British ‘A’ and ‘B’ road network, with
probably as many more on lesser but
nonetheless vital roads, including that
at Castleton, which allows only 12ft
clearance (with no metric equivalent
shown as this is the Independent
State of North Yorkshire!).
Given that almost every bridge
bash is a potential risk to rail safety
and therefore usually results in
disruption to train services while the
structure is examined, where are the
Department for Transport, the Office
of Rail and (not so much) Road, the
Rail Accident Investigation Branch and
local authorities in all this? All could do
much more to help prevent incidents
in the first place. Some years back the
wicked European Union proposed a
rather lower maximum height for all
vehicles across Europe but the DfT,as ever in the thrall of the road lobby,
did not implement the proposal,
and there are now an increasing
number of double deck trailers in use
on British roads that are 16ft (nearly
five metres) high. Local authorities
have little direct responsibility for
road under rail bridges, so with all
their other financial constraints are
reluctant to get involved, with the
result that signage is often not as
good as it could be, with particularly
a lack of advance warnings and
clear indications of turning places
or alternative routes. There seems
to be a marked reluctance, too, to
provide portal structures of the same
height placed in advance of low
bridges, apparently because there
are fears that such inevitably large
structures would be both unsightly
and possibly dangerous if damaged
or dislodged. So why not a row of
bells stretched between two obliging
lamp standards, as often used on
the Continent to protect bridges or
overhead wires at level crossings, with
the simple message ‘If you hit these
bells you will hit the bridge’. Or surely
modern technology could produce
a system which detects overheight
vehicles and illuminates a ‘stop!’
sign for less than £12,000 a bash?
This is yet something else on which
the DfT has failed to take the lead. And
if bridge bashes are such a potential
risk to rail safety, why do we also never
hear from the ORR’s Rail Inspectorate or
the Rail Accident Investigation Branch
in support of more preventative action
to stop bridge bashing and tougher
penalties for those that do? You can
be certain we would do so, with all
the attendant recommendations
and requirements to Network Rail, if
an earth slip or other event caused
the degree of distortion to the track
that stopped services at Castleton.N
ow, bearing in mind
recent tribulations, here’s
a fascinating bit of news.
From the beginning of the summer
timetable, there was to be a new
non-stop train from Scarborough to
Leeds (not even stopping at York?)
departing at 08.30 and arriving at
09.50. From Leeds, in the evening
peak, the journey was to be even
faster, just 75 minutes for the
67 miles. Not much improvement
from now, you may say. But that
news item is actually from a
summer 1900 edition of The Railway
Magazine and underlines just how
little the service has improved
in more than a century. Today,
Class 185 trains take 77 minutes
with three intermediate calls. Only
during the latter days of British
Rail when Class 158s were used
was this timing bettered, taking
advantage of less restrictive ‘Sprinter
Only’ speed limits. The magazine
of the day reveals that there were
16 ‘express’ trains each way a day
between York and Scarborough, plus
stopping services. Today there are
18 in all, calling at the two remaining
intermediate stations. The fastest
trains in 1900 took 50 minutes, with
up to nine coaches. Today they take,
ahem, 50 minutes, admittedly with
those two intermediate stops, but
invariably with just three coaches.
TransPennine now promises five
coaches from later this year on
its new Nova 3 Class 68 powered
trains, but there is no proposal
to improve timings. We should
all remember this next time our
politicians (including my local
MP) yet again bang on about the
shortcomings of our ‘Victorian
railway system’ and how much they
are improving it. Pure bunkum!
[email protected]Major rebuild: the bridge at Castleton.098_MR_Apr 2019_williams.indd 98 12/03/2019 15:11