[Article] Serious flaws found in Luas system

[Mark Gleeson]

Spotted that, the outbound run seems a lot nicer than the inbound one can't explain it

[sean]

I noticed that too - that there can be an unholy screeching sound going around tight bends.

As for Charlemont-Harcourt, I'm guessing that the inbound track has a tighter curve, while the outbound one is less sharp.

[alek smart]

"Em-data centres/server rooms are temperature controlled.".....To quote Janda earlier....However these locations usually have their computers plugged in....

[Kevin K Kelehan]

Further Luas track problems emerge

January 13, 2006 10:52
It has emerged that problems on Luas track are more significant than previously disclosed.

A series of reports commissioned by the Rail Procurement Agency warns problems with tracks on Luas could cause excessive widening between rails.

The Agency admitted yesterday that there was a problem but said there was no safety hazard and the track was being monitored every week.


Last week it emerged there was a problem with parts of the Luas tracks which would have to be repaired. RTE News has seen three further reports which reveal issues for the light rail system.

A rubbery substance which holds in blocks attached to the rail is cracking. One report by a German expert warns that in some circumstances this could give rise to excessive widening between rails. The document says this should be addressed as soon as possible.

The Railway Procurement Agency says the issue is being monitored every week. It stresses that there is absolutely no safety issue. The documents have been passed on to the railway safety commissioner, John Welsby, who says the issues are teething problems.

The Railway Procurement Agency says work on addressing the problems will commence in the coming months.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0113/luas.html

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by Irish Independent

'It's disgraceful' - Luas users voice their dismay News of latest rail repairs makes commuters see red
Grainne Cunningham

LUAS users yesterday expressed their anger and disappointment that the tram system is already facing extensive repairs so soon after completion.
The commuters voiced their opinions after the Railway Procurement Agency confirmed that 5pc of the capital's Luas track requires repair at a cost of about €10m.
Ciaran Fallon, an economics student from Co Laois, said it was "absolutely disgraceful after the amount of funding that went into it and given consultants informed them about it (the problems) in advance".

Mr Fallon said the now necessary work will condemn commuters and other travellers to another extended period of traffic delays and hold-ups.
His friend Catherine Bambrick, a beauty therapist, said she was "disappointed" with the news that the system was already showing signs of wear and tear.

Link up
Ms Bambrick, who takes the tram to and from Heuston Station once a week, said the RPA should now be preparing to link up the two lines rather than having to spend time ironing out problems.

"After all the disruption there was, to go back now and have any more, it's disgraceful," she said.
Darren Moore, from Smithfield, who uses the tram almost every day, could not understand why the problems were not spotted in the planning stages.

"The Government should have looked over the design more thoroughly," he said. He added however, that he thought the Luas was an excellent transport system which was badly needed for the city.

"The money needed to be spent but there were some bad mistakes made," Mr Moore said.

Commuter Kelly Ann O'Connell is dreading the disruption the repairs will cause. "They should have put more time and effort into the planning of it," she said.
Ms O'Connell, who takes the tram from Tallaght to the city every day, said her commute could be up to 40 minutes longer if the repairs meant she was forced to take a bus and then walk to her work place.

John Dillon, from Newbridge, said if the repair work had to be done so soon after the transport system opened to the public, "it will waste exchequer money and I don't think much of that". Mr Dillon said he had concerns about the tracks from the early stages of construction when he would pass them in his car.
"I felt it looked kind of flimsy," he said, adding that he had experience in the construction industry. Mr Dillon and his colleague, John Dowling, were using the Luas for the first time yesterday, to travel from Heuston Station to Liberty Hall. They were impressed with how user-friendly the system was.

© Irish Independent 2006
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independe...issue_id=13539

[Mark Gleeson]

The RPA /Connex (we know its the RPA who paid) have a largish ad on page 7 of todays Irish Times claiming everything is fine

You start to get worried when they have to fall as low as advertising to push the case

I could tell the story of Hatfield in the UK, so there was a rail defect and it was known, the cause they didn't understand really (kind like the Luas sleeper blocks) but it was planned to replace the rail, but due to the pressures of the privatised network and the possible penalties if the work did happen the work wasn't carried out and the rail broke, even then the accident could have been prevented as the signalling system showed a warning but alas a train derailed and killed several poeple, why because costs/disruption/business took priority over safety

I'm worried very worried where this is going

[Derek Wheeler]

Its going down the pan Mark!

As I said in my first post regarding this issue, its a case of wait and see. P11 is lucky that we didn't jump on the media bandwagon. The first and most important issue is the public release of the report and any other reports that refer to the same problem. Leaks aren't good enough.

P11 and its members/supporters are perhaps the only group of people that can appreciate how sneaky, secretive and distrustful, the RPA are.

Next time you read or listen to the RPA deny any major problem in relation to the track issue, just think 30m trams on the red line and what Ger Hannon said about P11s concerns. "Nonsense"

[Mark]

The RPA are amateurs simple as that.

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by Sunday Independent

Four thousand separate faults found on Luas lines

MAEVE SHEEHAN
AN astonishing 4,000 faults have been identified on the Luas lines in Dublin in a "snag list" drawn up by the Rail Procurement Agency (RPA), the Sunday Independent can reveal.

The flaws - identified in two expert consultant reports in recent weeks - are on top of the €10m repairs to the faulty bonding material that helps keeps the tracks in place. The repairs on the extensive snag list were identified by Luas engineers after the contractors finished laying the tracks in 2004. While many problems have been fixed, the contractors are still working their way through the snag list more than a year and a half later.

They are a further headache for Luas bosses who contracted AMB Joint Ventures, to design a 50-year, low-maintenance system.

The RPA, which operates Luas, declined to elaborate on the nature of the repairs on the snag list or on the cost.

However, a spokesman said that they ranged from broken flagstones to loose screws at various points along the track. He said the contractors, AMB Joint Ventures, won't get paid until the work is done.

"I know the snag list has been whittled down significantly and it will keep going until it is sorted out," he said. "The vast majority of those were minor repairs."

Olivia Mitchell, Fine Gael's spokesperson on Transport, said: "Four thousand seems like an awful lot of individual items.

"The important thing is that they are not repaired at a cost to the taxpayer and that they are completed before the contractor hands over the system to the RPA."
The €775m light-rail network has carried more than 22m passengers since it was launched in June 2004.

The polymer bonding that keeps the tracks on line had not set properly on about five per cent of the line. The contractors and the RPA each commissioned their own expert reports on the problem. The agency-commissioned study found that there could be excessive widening of the tracks in certain conditions. Both recommended remedial works but said there were no immediate safety concerns. Luas engineers had separately drawn up an extensive snag list outlining other flaws. The RPA insisted the repairs would be carried out at no cost to the taxpayer.

Work on repairing the tracks will start in April.

© Sunday Independent 2006
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independe...issue_id=13540

[MrX]

While I wouldn't be too concerned about a minor derailment in the city centre / street sections due to the low speed the trams move at. I would be very worried about the possibility of a tram leaving the rails at speed on the track sections on the redline.

They move relatively quickly on those sections and, compared to a DART or Commuter DMU they're pretty light bus-like vechicles.

There have already been a couple of relatively high profile "teething problems" including a couple of derailments since the Luas launched. I wonder if they have had anything to do with the track moving about more than had been anticipated.

[Mark Gleeson]

The two derailments where in Sandyford depot on ballasted track, possibly speed related.

I'm very worried every day there is more and more revelations. There is a dangerous game being played where safety is being traded off against face saving and disruption. Someone in the RPA is going to have to call a halt and put the hands up

[MrX]

I'd rather see the RPA coming up with a contingency plan and getting the repair work done ASAP rather than all this messing about.


E.g. it could be done section by section using single track running / contraflows etc.. It wouldn't be the end of the world, it'd just be a slow down in service for a while.

If they end up derailing a tram and injuring / killing people all the PR in the world won't help.

IE wouldn't think twice about disruption and in this case that would be a good thing. I think when private operators and time-related targets come into the equation the Railway Safety Commission really needs to be there and have serious teeth!

[philip]

Didn't the reports both state that there was no immediate risk of danger?

The reports should be released into the public domain in their eintirety, then we'd know a lot more.

[Mark Gleeson]

The RPA have been running this ad in the papers over the last few days

You could view it as misleading particulary where they say no safety risk whatsoever since it is accepted there are safety risks in the medium term

Well its end game for the RPA and they are in for a very very nasty surprise, more tomorrow...... It so much bigger than this issue

[sean]

This does not surprise me.

I probably told this story on the old forums, but while hanfing out DRP fliers outside Heuston early last year, I was speaking to an elderly gentleman who had been casually watching the Luas construction.

He told me that there were days going by when there were workers on-site but no work being done, hardly any supervision etc.

As such, I was informed that what I was promoting (the Dublin Rail Plan) was never going to happen because 'they' can't do anything right ... When I explained that the Luas was commissioned by a new and inexperienced state agency called the Railways Procurmenet Agency, the DRP to be done by Irish Rail, he had few choice words to say about them too.

To me it's obvious the contractors of the Luas were "asleep at the wheel." I had thought it was just the slipped schedules and the cost overruns but the tracks falling apart? That's news to me. Not very surprising news though.

[Kevin K Kelehan]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Well its end game for the RPA and they are in for a very very nasty surprise, more tomorrow...... It so much bigger than this issue

Mark they'll have to come into work tomorrow you slave driver

[philip]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

You could view it as misleading particulary where they say no safety risk whatsoever since it is accepted there are safety risks in the medium term

To be fair Mark, the RPA ad uses the present tense, "there are no safety risks" is what it says. They know that in the medium-long term there is an issue to address but I believe them when they say the corkelast bonding is ok for the time being. I've seen materials in work like this before failing very slowly over time but not suddenly.

The tracks are warmed up prior to installation aren't they? (that's the way CWR is supposed to be installed anyway) so that they are in their expanded state when installed and they tihten up as they cool and contract-we've been through winter now and nothing has given way and as it warms up heading towards summer the risk should actually decline, giving the contractors plenty of time to rectify this before next winter when the tracks begin to contract again.

I reckon there is as much risk of a tram derailing and causing injury due to poor track conditions as there is of a train doing so on IE tracks.

[Mark Gleeson]

The rails are brought to a neutral temperature when welded, I think its 16 degrees in Ireland, the rail will contract and expand with variations in temperature which the sleeper and foundation design is designed to prevent, by firmly holding onto the rail and resisting the forces, if the sleepers are unable to restrain the rail the track buckles, the forces involved are quite serious.

The risk to passenger safety is low (no such thing as 0) but it is outside the as low as reasonably practical, ALARP principle which is the accepted safety approach, I say that as it was reasonable to rectify the issue before passengers where carried there was nothing preventing that other than pride and politcans.

The RPA have only themselves to blame for not making the safety reports available, hard cold facts are what we need. I can imagine the safety reports say a few uncomplimentary things too as they always do

[philip]

Well, 16 degrees is a lot warmer than we've had over winter, particulalry up in tallaght where it's colder so if something was to give it would have given on one of the sub zero nights this past winter.

Totally agree that the reports should be in the public domain already. I think we'd all be a lot more relaxed about it if that were the case.

Edit; 16 degrees seems a lot lower than the 27 (mean sumer temperature) degrees the UK uses?

[Colm Donoghue]

I think the problems would occur at the warm end of the scale.
Steel is elastic so if it was under tension at -4 degrees, is should be fine( especially in straight stretches.
If it was at 36 degrees in the summer, then if it wasn't held tight, it could buckle. as far as I can tell of course.