Madam, – There are some people who cannot be trusted with alcohol, others who cannot be trusted with firearms. Should we conclude that there are some who cannot be trusted with viaducts?
The collapse of a viaduct without warning is an exceedingly rare event. Two collapses on a small rail network like ours, at Cahir in 2003 and now at Broadmeadow, must raise serious questions about management – and especially inspection regimes.
When was the last railway viaduct collapse in any other developed country? The latest I can trace in Britain was in 1916. Yet Britain must have several hundred viaducts, many of them higher, longer, older and more heavily used than ours and some located in equally tricky terrain.
Most of the debate so far about the latest failure has been quite irrational. Commentators express surprise that the collapse was accelerated by the passage of a train. However, unless affected by a cataclysmic external event, when is a viaduct more likely to fail than when carrying a heavy, dynamic load? Then the driver is hailed as a hero by PR folk desperate to put a positive spin on the news. However, with all due respect to him, all he did was to have the elementary common sense not to brake hard, then he reported the problem.
Others have blamed the age of the bridge, the difficult site or the original British builders – rather than whoever rebuilt it a century later. One vox-popper actually said, “It’s not Irish Rail’s fault!”
Surely, the buck must stop with CIÉ until we have good evidence of an unpredictable cause?
What would Lady Bracknell have said about the loss of two viaducts, I wonder? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – As a teenager living in Marino in the early 1950s and attending St Joseph’s Christian Brothers’ school in Fairview, I remember the delight of an unexpected day off from school due to a 24-hour deluge of rain. The combination of the Tolka river overflowing its banks and an exceptionally high tide resulted in the massive flooding of Fairview and North Strand and the collapse of the rail bridge over the Tolka at East Wall Road.
Within a very short time the Army Engineering Corps had erected a temporary bridge known, I believe, as a Bailey bridge across the river and rail services were resumed. This giant Meccano-like structure remained in service until replaced by the present bridge. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It was reported in Home News on August 24th, (echoing Iarnród Éireann information) that delays of “approximately 30 minutes can be expected” on the Enterprise service between Dublin and Belfast because of the collapse of the Broadmeadow Estuary rail viaduct.
I travel between Dublin and Newry on that line between two and four times per week. The journey normally takes 73 minutes. On Monday night the 8.45pm replacement coach left us waiting at Drogheda Station for an hour and a quarter while the train refuelled and turned around, with the result that we arrived at Newry at 11.10pm, one hour and 12 minutes behind schedule. – Yours, etc,