[SystemSafety] Passengers travelling through London Paddington are facing continued disruption after a train derailment.

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

> On 17 Jun 2016, at 16:59, Dick Selwood <dick at ntcom.co.uk> wrote:
> But why did the derailed vehicle hit the overhead support?  this seems to be a bad idea.
> 
I just travelled by. It is a few hundred meters  outside the station. There is no visible siding at that point, there are walls and the lines going in to the platforms. 

The gantry is well bent and leaning over three tracks. Two cars are left, on/hanging over what would have been the track going in to platform 1.  I don't know how many were originally in the set - what's normal for these EMUs? 4? 

There is welding and reconstruction work going on, on tracks 2 and 3 (I seem to remember) and point sets connecting them. Rails are being replaced, it seems. 

This suggests to me that the train was coming in to  one of the low-numbered platforms, and passing/passed over points that are now being repaired.  Given there is not much space between points and stationary cars, it might weel have been that the trainset was derailed before the points. On the other hand, it's probably only going at 20kph or less at that point and a derailed car is a pretty good brake, so it is not out of the question that it could have derailed at the points.

I agree with Dick that it doesn't seem to be a good idea deliberately to derail a train with that much critical infrastructure in the immediate environment. Given that there are critical things to hit on each side and in front, it does seem as if ATP would be a better idea. The report will make interesting reading.

PBL 

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, University of Bielefeld and Causalis Limited
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