Isle of Man Railways investigating incident
"A Snaefell Mountain Railway tram carriage has suffered brake failure on a descent from the summit this afternoon, transport bosses have confirmed.
Isle of Man Railways says a momentary lapse in the electric braking system caused the car to run approximately six 'pole lengths' (200m) before the mechanical fell brakes could be activated.
In that time, the carriage ran across the roadway at the Bungalow.
No passengers were injured, and a backup tram was dispatched to return them to Laxey shortly afterward.
Director of Public Transport Ian Longworth told Manx Radio staff were trained to deal with such occurrences - which he added 'really aren't out of the ordinary' on Snaefell.
It's thought a slight interruption to the tram's power supply caused the brakes to falter - this is being investigated by officials."
http://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/bre...
Isle of Man Newspapers have also run the story, their article has attracted a number of interesting comments.
http://www.iomtoday.co.im/article.cfm?id=35264&hea...
Readers of MTR and visitors to the MERS website will be aware that in recent years there have been a number of safety related incidents involving the Island's railways, most notably the overturning of MER Winter Trailer 58 in 2015 and the near complete destruction of SMR Car 3 which ran away from the Summit in 2016. The investigations carried out in the wake of these incidents have yet to be made public.
The MERS has received the following comments since the story broke:-
Thank god the crew managed to get this tram under control, this could quite easily been a disaster. Something is very wrong here, from reading the posts on the newspaper blog the tram appears to have travelled further out of control than the "management" are admitting to. If this isn't now a wake up call after the destruction of car 3 and now this, then god help us. Running across the road at the bungalow out of control as well, think some of the higher management need to take a good look at their selves, truly shocking and very worrying.
David Archer
What
on earth is happening to this Islands system, money cut backs? Skill
shortages? or just lackadaisical
attitude.
Brian Maguire
Sounds
like the tram's emergency 'Fell' braking system, worked pretty much
as it's Victorian engineers designed it, and that overall safety was
significantly not compromised. Good work by the Snaefell Railway
train crew.
Ian Edwards
Isle
of Man Railways says a momentary lapse in the electric braking system
caused the car to run approximately six 'pole lengths' (200m) before
the mechanical fell brakes could be activated. In that time, the
carriage ran across the roadway at the Bungalow. No passengers were
injured, and a backup tram was dispatched to return them to Laxey
shortly afterwards.
Phil
Parker
One
of the trams derailed when I was on it back in the 70's as a kid, my
dad along with all the men had to help rock it back onto the track.
It was up near the Bungalow before the road.
Steven Dalgliesh
Power
interruption and the tram rolled across the Bungalow road where there
is no Fell rail apparently.
Phil Parker
Is
there no battery backup? no servo operated mechanical brake? no dead
man's switch? No reactive braking system? Hey I'm no off island
expertise but I did a HND in Electrical Engineering at no mickey
mouse college. I know these trams are 100 years old but they can made
safe for public safety
James Morgan
Just
what is going on over there?
Rob McCaffery
Oh Dear, not another cock
up? At least the tram wasn't destroyed on this occasion, and much
more importantly, nobody was injured.
Nick Gordon