HST hits tree at Lavington today - 10 July 2010

[whole diary]

[woody]

I understand the that today the 1306 Paddington to Penzance hit a tree at Lavingdon near Westbury causing severe damage to the front power car cab.The tree crashed through the power cars  cab side and exited through the windscreen luckily missing the driver.Can anyone confirm or add any further details.ie which power car was involved in the collision.

[devon_metro]

43041, dragged to WSB^» (Westbury - next trains) by 59201. Driver only minor injuries. Arrival into Westbury over 400 late. Whole set has wherlflats so will all require attention, with 41 needing a new cab!

[JayMac]

Glad to hear the driver is OK. 43041 needing a new cab and driver needing new pants I expect!

[bigdaz]

It sounds to me like the driver and passengers were extremely lucky not to have suffered a derailment. 

I assume the tree must have been nearing the track bit by bit for some time before falling foul of the train's clearance area.

[inspector_blakey]

Just for the record, it's Lavington not Lavingdon.

[BBM]

Mark Few has some photos of the set on arrival at Westbury on his Fotopic site:

http://markfew.fotopic.net/c1870413.html

[JayMac]

Jeez..... looking at the damage, the driver was indeed very lucky to get away with only minor injuries.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i guess this means no spare powercars now

[ReWind]

Rumour that another HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) powercar hit an electric cable pole at Hayes & Harlington today too.

Anyone confirm this?

[Super Guard]

i guess this means no spare powercars now

I don't think there were any spare before the Penzance derailment!

[LiskeardRich]

Rumour that another HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) powercar hit an electric cable pole at Hayes & Harlington today too.

Anyone confirm this?

there were reports of an obstruction on the line in that area, and a paddington-plymouth train terminated at Slough, and was restarted from exeter, i initially thought due to the tree incident, but why wouldnt they of terminated it further along such as at reading?

[Timmer]

Shame FGW^▸ (First Great Western) no longer have their long distance loco hauled sets that were taken off lease a few years back as I think they may need them if they lose another set. Sorry to say the Cotswold line will probably find more of their HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) booked services operating as Turbos when FGW need every set to run summer services to the South West.

[JayMac]

Can FGW^▸ (First Great Western) not spot hire a XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) set? They're under utilised at the moment.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i wonder if there are any dvt's spare that can work hith hst's, class 67's have a top speed of 120 but doubt they are compatible with the hst mk 3's electrics, plenty of mk2 stock around but can this do 125?

on a slightly different subject STOP MOANING ABOUT TURBOS, would you like pacers insted??

[willc]

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) has 118 Class 43s and 53 rakes of MK3s, not all of which are in traffic due to servicing, so if they can't supply enough sets each day out of that lot, even with a number of 43s and this rake needing emergency repairs, one does wonder. And I don't know where they might be getting any more Turbos from, the fleet is flat out already on weekdays and one or two sets at a time are out of traffic for refresh work, so precious little slack there.