DERAILMENT AT HEST BANK STATION

Derailment at Hest Bank Station is described. The sleeping car express became derailed over water troughs when travelling at 70 mile/h, and broke into three portions. The cause of the accident was a broken rail, a portion of the cess rail about 13 feet long. The fracture had occurred 15 feet from the nearest weld apparently started as a transverse crack through the rail head, underneath an old wheelburn, subsequently turning horizontally in the direction of travel along the web until it had turned down to the foot and up to the head leaving a piece of rail head 4 feet 7 inches long detached. An ultrasonic flaw detector examination five months prior to the derailment failed to detect the vertical crack in the railhead. The final failure occurred because of low temperature on the night of the accident which caused a tensile stress to be set up in the long welded rail, causing an increase in the stress concentration round the edge of the fractured zone.

• Corporate Authors:

  Temple Press Limited

  161-166 Fleet Street
  Longon EC4,   England 
• Publication Date: 1966-6-3

Media Info

• Features: Photos;
• Pagination: p. 459
• Serial:
  • RAILWAY GAZETTE
  • Volume: 122

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cracking; Deformation curve; Derailments; Inspection; Locomotives; Nondestructive tests; Passenger cars; Railroad cars; Railroad rails; Stresses; Technology; Tension; Ultrasonic tests; Welded rail
• Uncontrolled Terms: Tensile stress
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• Old TRIS Terms: Fissures (Rails); Wheel burn
• Subject Areas: Railroads; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00037842
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 13 1976 12:00AM