Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Storage of Gas Cylinders

There has been much comment recently regarding the storage of gas cylinders near public transport infrastructure.

Much of this has of course been as a result of a major fire at a scrap-yard in North London earlier this month. The particular scrap-yard is under the M1 Motorway and was so severe that the road had to be closed for several days.

Initially the major problem was that there were Acetylene cylinders thought to be involved with the incident. The London Fire Brigade doesn't like these particular types of gas cylinder as they can become exceedingly unstable and dangerous if involved in a fire. It subsequently transpired that the real issue was that the fire was so serious that the concrete structure holding the motorway up was seriously damaged. This took some serious engineering to repair enough to enable the motorway to be opened.

My local train station, which is in rural Buckinghamshire, has had lots of Network Rail engineers in attendance over the weekend. Actually, so far as I can tell, they were sub-contractors employed by Bam Nuttall. They worked hard for four days with their engineering work (though most of their work is not visible to mere mortals), and they made a fairly good attempt at clearing after themselves.
They've left just one thing. I don't think it's acetylene, but it is quite literally plonked in the middle of the car park. I wonder if it's been forgotten? I wonder if I should tell Chiltern Railways? I wonder if they'll be interested?

1 comment:

Mo said...

Love your site. Always looking to learn more about anything to do with rail