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User:Serial Number 54129/Sandbox IX

Coordinates: 53°24′17″N 2°57′32″W / 53.40475°N 2.95889°W / 53.40475; -2.95889
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The 2017 Liverpool Lime Street wall collapse occurred on 28 February 2017 outside Liverpool's main railway station, Lime Street.

Events

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Liverpool Lime Street, the main city centre station,[1] was built in 1836 and had its grandiose châteauesque frontage constructed thirteen years later. As of 2017, it was used by over 20,000 passengers a year.[2] A smaller—and at the time deemed insignifant—fall of debris on the same portion of track was known of by Network Rail but not considered indicative of a long-term or fundamental weakness in the cutting wall.[3]

Collapse

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A 3D model created by the RAIB illustrating the aftermath of the 2017 wall colllapse.

On 28 February 2017 a 200-tonne,[4] 10-metre deep[5] section of embankment wall collapsed onto all four of the tracks running into the throat of Liverpool Lime Street station,[4]—which has been called 'one of the busiest in the North of England'[6][7]—and damaged infrastructure.[8] The area affected, between Albert Road and Elm Grove,[note 1] was a freehold site and privately managed under a 999-year lease[10] since 1993. It was adjacent to the recent Paddington Village development, a recent regeneration area.[9]

The wall's collapse, which happened at about 17:45,[11] put trains at a stand-still for three hours,[8] with three needing to be evacuated.[12] A commuter train had recently passed beneath the area of the fall, which led to the RMT trades union to claim that 'at least one train was seconds away from colliding with the collapse".[12] Network Rail,Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). who owned the cutting wall, stated that an unnamed third-party had loaded the wall with what it described as "concrete and cabins",[4] with five containers 'each holding many tonnes of material".[12] The later report into the incident clarified ownership of the wall and property, noting that while NR was responsible for the cutting wall, and owned "a small portion"[13] of the land behind it, the rest of the land was owned by Liverpool City Council, who had rented it out.[10] Although Network Rail did monitor the wall's integrity occasionally, this was insufficient to pick up the changes in stresses and strains that had gradually been taking place.[13]

All four running lines into the mouth of the station were blocked until 8 March, with train operators East Midlands, Virgin, Northern Rail, London Midland and TransPennine Express all starting and terminating their services at earlier stations. East Midlands operated out of Manchester Oxford Road, Virgin from Runcorn, and London Midland and TPE out of Liverpool South Parkway. Northern trains were the most severely disrupted and ran a limited service on many routes with no central hub.[14]

Cleanup and Investigation

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A drivers-eye view of the tracks the wall collapsed onto.
A drivers-eye view of the track layout outside Lime Street Station showing the general area the collapse took place.

Limited train services recommenced the following day while Lime street itself remained closed.[1] Network Rail launched a simultaneous investigation and clear-up operation,[4] with the latter taking priority.[10] The clean-up operation, they said, would prevent train movements in and out of the station for at least the following week.[4] The operation—conducted by what a Network Rail's manager called an "orange army" on account of the full bodied- high-visibility clothing worn by railworkers[5]—proceeded in three stages. This was first to ensure there was no further danger of landfall, then clearing the rubble and rubbish, and finally repairing the tracks[8] and overhead lines.[4] Other equipment, such as signalling, also had to be repaired.[5] The latter could not be started, said Network Rail, until the former had been cleared and made safe.[14] Within two days, over sixty tonnes of earth and rubbish had been removed,[8] although it was also suggested that the operation might need to take longer, depending on whether the whole wall needed rebuilding.[15]

Investigation by the Liverpool Echo, based on Land Registry documents, subsequently revealed that the owner of the piece of land behind the collapsed wall had, in the newspaper's own words, "previously faced council action over dangerous storage practices at the site"[10] in 2012, particularly regarding the storage of shipping containers. The 2012 complaint was that "large shipping containers were being stacked on top of each other on the land",[10] to which the council responded with enforcement action against the site's leaseholder. The council confirmed their previous action to the Echo in 2017 [10] The council subsequently attempted to purchase the land from the leaseholder, but discussion had resulted in no agreement, and as a result, the council announced in September that year that it would compulsorily purchase it. The council stated that the compulsory purchase order was "not directly connected to the landslip and the Lime Street closure".[9]

In the event, the lines were cleared and the station reopened a day earlier than scheduled.[16] Between the wall's collapse and 8 March 2017, 200 tonnes of wreckage and rubble was cleared from the tracks, and another 4,000 tonnes of material was excavated from the land behind the wall,[5] although six months later Network Rail said that "long-term repairs" were still necessary on the cutting wall, although it had been sufficiently strengthened to be "safe, solid and secure".[9]

Aftermath

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RAIB cutaway illustration of the earthworks.
RAIB cutaway illustration of the earthworks showing how the wall was weakened.

An enquiry was launched into the accident by the RAIB,[note 2] who reported in November the same year. They declared that Network Rail was partially culpable for the accident as it lacked "suitable risk prioritisation process in place for retaining walls".[13] Network Rail, said the investigation report, needed to "do better at spotting potential problems caused by building work near rail lines".[3] In these cases, they said, that in the event of any such structural failure, the consequences could be more severe than they need have been. The RAIB also said, however, that the wall was under more pressure than it was designed to bear by the excess development on the land behind it,[13] which involved a substantial amount of earth moving taking place,[3] and had infringed on railway property in doing so. The report found that excess soil had been piled behind the top of the wall which resulted in higher load-bearing than was safe.[19] In their own words, the RAIB decided that the collapse had two causal reactors. Firstly, that the leaseholder of the council's land "built an earthwork against the retaining wall without assessing the effect of the additional surcharge"; and concomitantly, that Network Rail, had not discovered how its permenantboundary had been infringed upon and so had been unable to either take action to stop this infingement or to counteract the excess pressure being placed upon the wall.[20]

The RAIB report did not rule out a connection to the heavy construction taking place nearby in the Paddington Village regeberation area.[3] A Network Rail manager posited at the time of the crash that, since the area had also experienced heavy rainfall in recent weeks, the resultant saturation may have increased pressure on the wall,[1] and the RAIB report concurred with this likelihood.[13] The RAIB also concurred that there was a "high risk of loss of life".[3]

The chief inspector of rail accidents, Simon French, stated that the collapse "had the potential to crush or derail a passing train, with disastrous consequences",[13] but also suggested that NR should have been aware of the potential dangers that the soil embankment that had been bult up behind the wall[3] for some time.[13] Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). The RAIB recommended immediate investigation of all such old infrastructure and regular examination of any danger-spots that were thereby discovered.[19]

The wall collapsed just five months before Network Rail begun a major infrastructure upgrade at Lime Street to create an additional two platforms, more remodelled, and the installation of overhead line equipment. It was unrelated to the previous incident and had been in planning for a year.[2]

Notes

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  1. ^ The land is part of the site of Archbishop Blanch School before it moved in 2015.[9]
  2. ^ The RAIB exist, in their own words, to "improve railway safety by preventing future railway accidents or by mitigating their consequences". They emphasise that their role is not, however, to investigate or apportion culpability through the course of their investigations, and, so, "accordingly, it is inappropriate that RAIB reports should be used to assign fault or blame, or determine liability, since neither the investigation nor the reporting process has been undertaken for that purpose".[17] It was formed in 2005 to replace Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate.[18]

References

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  1. ^ a b c BBC News 2017d.
  2. ^ a b BBC News 2017c.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Houghton 2017c.
  4. ^ a b c d e f BBC News 2017a.
  5. ^ a b c d Rail Technology Magazine 2017b.
  6. ^ Barrett 2017.
  7. ^ The Times 2017.
  8. ^ a b c d Smith 2017.
  9. ^ a b c d Houghton 2017b.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Thorp 2017.
  11. ^ East Lothian Courier 2017.
  12. ^ a b c The Telegraph 2017.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Rail Technology Magazine 2017a.
  14. ^ a b Esa 2017.
  15. ^ Houghton 2017.
  16. ^ BBC News 2017b.
  17. ^ RAIB 2017, p. 3.
  18. ^ "Rail Accident Investigation Branch launched" Railways Illustrated issue 35 January 2006 page 19
  19. ^ a b BBC News 2017e.
  20. ^ RAIB 2017, p. 23.

Sources

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53°24′17″N 2°57′32″W / 53.40475°N 2.95889°W / 53.40475; -2.95889


Category:Events in Liverpool Category:2017 in England Category:February 2017 events in the United Kingdom Liverpool Liverpool Category:21st century in Liverpool Category:2017 disasters in the United Kingdom

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