The Anonymous Widower

Government Probe Into How Derailed Freight Train Travelled 2.5 miles Along Overground Line

The title of this post is the same as rgis article on the Ham and High.

This is the introductory paragraph.

The government has launched an investigation into how a derailed freight train travelled 2.5 miles before the problem was flagged up to the driver.

The article gives some more details.

• The accident happened on Thursday 23rd of January.
• The train derailed near Wanstead Park station.
• The train finally stopped between Leyton Midland Road and Walthamstow Queens Road.
• The train was carrying construction  from Barkingspoil to the landfill site at Calvert in Buckinghamshire.

The derailment caused a lot of damage as pictures and this paragraph in the article show.

Across the two and a half mile stretch, there are 39 new pieces of rail – each 216m long – that require replacing, as well as 5,300 concrete sleepers and 900 wooden sleepers.

Work to replace 10,000 tonnes of ballast will need to take place, as well as putting replacement timber into 10 bridges.

At least, as they have just relaid this section of railway for the Gospel Oak to Barking electrification, there will hopefully be no nasty surprises  in the rebuilding process.

This map from carto.metro.free,fr shows the track layout between South Tottenham station in the West and Blackhorse Road station in the East.

Note the two crossovers either side of South Tottenham station, which are used to reverse the train between the two platforms.

I suspect that London Overground, wish there are crossovers at Blackhorse Road station, so that passengers could use the interchange with the Victoria Line.

But crossovers are expensive can cause operational problems.

At least, there are no crossovers in the section of track destroyed by the freight train.

February 6, 2020 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Freight, Gospel Oak And Barking Line, South Tottenham Station