Re: Indian Pacific hits freight train - Who's the Responsible Investigating body?

[David Langley <del@ancc.com.au>]

Maurie Daly wrote:

> >Having an insulator between the wheel and the rail is usually fatal for any
> >form of track circuit.
>
> If however , the Rail Authority has done none of these, then they are
> expecting us to beleive that sanding from a steam loco can make the track ccts
> fail in a dangerous mode , but not sand from diesels or electrics.
> Hardly beleivable one would think.
> Prior to the 3801 incident had the SRA , or indeed any other Railway in this
> country issued warnings about sanding in track circuited terrain?

The problems of Cowan Bank are surely unique and warrant their own rules, the
rules re sanding would be quite OK anywhere else. The poms of course have their
annual problem in autumn - leaf fall season and have gone to great lengths and
huge expenditure to overcome the problem of trains unable to brake to a stand at
stations or red signals, or to lift the load once stopped. The problems of rail
insulation are not new, just caused by different situations.

A question now for the NSW people, what happened in the days of the plodding
standard goods loco climbing Cowan Bank and dropping all their sand etc. Electric
signals with track circuits existed then so did they have any problems way back
then.

David.