Excursion operators Belmond said a “shunting incident” occurred when Flying Scotsman was being coupled with the company’s Royal Scotsman carriages.
A spokesperson said: "As a precaution, two people - a man and a woman - were taken to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness by the Scottish Ambulance Service for treatment. Their injuries are not believed to be serious.
“A number of other passengers were assessed by the ambulance service at the scene and did not require hospital treatment.”
I was bringing in a loco to a hitch one day and the engineer was quite proud that he’d come in very gently. But the pin didn’t drop. “Take it out and try it again…”
A few years ago my wife and I took Amtrak from Ottumwa IA to San Francisco (Emeryville) and back. (Only 20 mins late into Emeryville.) On the way home they picked up 3 or 4 private cars on the hind end. Took 3 tries before they made the joint. That cost us about an hour, with UP west of Salt Lake already putting us 2 hours “off the advertised.”
My understanding is that the locomotive was backing down to couple to the train. The consist presumably had some brakes set – I do not know if the service brake is still vacuum.
The locomotive backs into buffer contact and then compresses the buffers partway; someone then goes ‘between the cars’, hooks up the screw link extended, and then screws the coupling up tight compressing the buffers further.
The reports seem to be indicating that the locomotive inadvertently accelerated to come hard up against the consist. A poorly lapped-in or stiff regulator might contribute to this, with the effect potentially aggravated if too quick an opening caused priming carryover. Flying Scotsman is built with her superheater elements ahead of the throttle, as was typical in contemporary British practice, and any carryover flashing to steam in the elements would cause just the sort of short-term acceleration we see here. (Remember the Blue Peter incident, which started this way and was complicated by the valve gear winding itself out…)
Not a crash - just a hard coupling. Ignore the comments from the morons that never drove anything larger than a Fiat (and probably took out their fair share of planters trying to park it).
What!? Seriously!? That’s it!? And it made the news!?
I mean that is more than a bit embarrasing on a train full of passengers, especially if you spilled people’s drinks or damaged part of the coupling equipment (whatever the British equivalent of bypassed drawbars is).
Of course the British tabloids would call this a train crash.
Imagine if they ever find out about kicking, humping and drops…
Never mind poor communication - the loco shouldn’t have been coming in that fast for a coupling in the first place. And have they never heard of a safety stop?
Well said. British tabloids are the absolute worst. Keep in mind The Telegraph is the souce of most of these outrageous headlines and it’s for sale. They are trying to drive up views to justify a higher price to a buyer.
I once read that to the British, a battle in which a thousand men died could be referred to later as “a bit of a dust-up,” but let two women wear the same dress to a party and the resultant raised eye brows would be called “a hell of a row.” So it is with this “train crash.”
That’s not quite correct. The “Royal Scotsman” consists mainly of Mark 1 Pullman cars, all of which have knuckle couplers. Flying Scotsman has a knuckle coupler on its tender, so it is most likely that these were in use (although on both the locomotive and coach, the coupler can be dropped to allow the use of screw couplers). It is most likely that the knuckles were in use.
It is possible that the frame is bent slightly. This car was built with normal vestibules at each end and was converted to have an open platform at the end involved in the impact. This conversion might have affected the underframe strength.
Most locomotives in the UK do not have knuckle couplers, Flying Scotsman being an exception. So coupling two knuckles might be unfamiliar to some crews, although you’d expect the Flying Scotsman crew to be familiar.
