I discovered that the two-track version of this bridge across the Papenpadsluis, where the coach was pushed into the lockpit on to the barge, was situated at the location where these days the double track semi-split level junction between the Zaandam-Uitgeest lines and the Zaandam-Hoorn & Enkhuizen lines is situated: the semi-split bit has to do with the fact that the Zaandam-Hoorn line still has a one direction only Automatic Half Barrier crossing across the straight and very busy 70 km/h-45 mph dual-carriageway that parallels the main line there. Whilst reading up I discovered that Netherlands Railways -for eminently sensible reasons as it turned out- always wanted a normal split level junction with a double track viaduct across that road, but that the local municipality opposed it for unclear reasons with probably a whiff of NIMBYism from nearby residents. The situation that developed, whereby trains from Amsterdam via Zaandam to Hoorn and Enkhuizen negotiated the level crossing but trains from Enkhuizen to Zaandam went across a single-track viaduct, succumbed to the accident gremlin occasionally spooking this place: On 24-12-1993 a propelled NS DD-AR double deck push-pull set from Amsterdam to Enkhuizen had left Zaandam at 21:01 and negotiated the right-hand curve in which the AHB is situated three minutes later. A 55-year old car-driver, on his way in the direction of Zaandam whilst being well over the alcohol limit, decided to overtake the substantial line of cars waiting for the crossing of which the barriers had been down for 27 seconds already and then zig-zagged at speed past those barriers . Following this manouevre he hit the 4-tonne rear bogie/truck of the leading double-deck driving trailer/remote control car at 55 km/h-35 mph and derailed this vehicle, whereby his car was thrown back about 30 metres into the direction from which he came. He had to be sawed and levered out of the wreck, badly injured, to be convicted to serve 18 months in prison and lose his driver’s licence for 5 years. The train, however, derailing at speed in a sharp right-curve, fared badly. The entire set plus locomotive 1768 was derailed, the driving trailer hitting a pier of the viaduct in the opposite track and being damaged severely. Clearing the wreckage took two days and was finished on the 26th of December, the cost about 7 million of the then Dutch guilders. The train driver was one of the 31 injured, ten of whom suffered life-changing injuries. One person died.Somewhat unfortunately the same heated discussions about the safety of push-pull operations and the stability of double-deck rail vehicles developed that flared up every time since push-pull operations and travel with double-deck (imperial) vehicles developed in France way back around 1870. Sad, people who scream doom and misery loud enough to be of interest for the media but do not appear to have any relevant knowledge. Even in this case the double deck coaches stayed largely upright, none ended up on their sides and stability was not an issue. During the high-speed derailment of a pushed set at Polmont in Scotland on the 30th of July 1984 the single-deck coaches also did not end up on their sides. This level crossing at Zaandam, incidentally, is for a number of reasons now rated as among the most dangerous in the rail network in The Netherlands.
As far as the shunting incident on the 14th of January 1939 at around 12:00 is concerned: I haven’t found the accident report as yet, but read quite a number of newspaper reports on the subject. Unfortunately the text of these articles appeared to have been sourced mostly from one press-agency, as it was virtually the same text for all newspapers. There was quite a glut of other, probably more important news, like a German liner that accidentally hit and damaged the Dutch frigate Tromp somewhere near the Iberian peninsula. Moreover there were a surprising number of road traffic accidents and level crossing collisions at the same time.But this is what I could gather: It was a complete set of Holland Railway Company (HSM) wood-built compartment coaches, propelled/pushed from the direction of Zaandam station. This sort of train, usually hauled by a surprisingly small 2’B1’/4-4-1 tank engine, was typical for the probably cringingly slow services along the at the time single-track line from Zaandam to Hoorn and Enkhuizen. Why they were propelled as a main line shunt, from what track to which other track and whether the signalling actually allowed the shunt to happen I can’t say as yet, but if the shunt took place with permission then there cannot have been interlock between the drawbridge and the signalling; which for 1939 is a very strange thing to find out indeed. Also, who gave permission for the shunt to be performed? If that was the stationmaster at Zaandam, who, as in German orientated signalling systems like that of the HSM, was the person in charge of station-staff, signallers and in this case the bridge operator. How come he gave bridge operator Mr. Dolleman permission to open the bridge for the wood barge, as well as apparently giving the driver of the shunting train permission to start the shunt? And why did no one appear to spot the high over the landscape raking open bridge in this notoriously flat landscape? And why was there no shunter on the rear coach of the train, as boatman Mr. Geene noticed before he jumped off his vessel and reported during the inquest after the accident? Such long main-line shunts are by no means rare, incidentally, they can be seen on many networks, especially between sidings and a main terminus. Often the manoeuvre is controlled by the shunter standing at the front of the rear coach, who operates the train brake with a portable brake valve that he connects to the brake-pipe. I have included a picture of a coach at the Gara de Nord terminus in Bucharest in Romania. I heard about an incident with such a shunt hitting the bufferstops at Helsinki main station in Finland about a year ago and I saw trains being brought in at German stations and at Innsbrueck Hbf that way in the seventies. Nothing special, long history, but why was there no one on this set? Incidentally, the bogie/truck that can be seen on the cargo of wood on the barge rolled off and had to be retrieved from the bottom of the lock pit after it rolled off when the coach was lifted to be cleared the same day 5 hours later.
Yesterday I sent round a reasonably polite request for information to Dutch contacts about the railway drawbridge, in the hope to finally find out where this three-track railway drawbridge was located. This was after two weeks of trawling through internet files and having seen virtually all of the rail- and road drawbridges in The Netherlands. Some truly inspiring ones did pop up, I confess, especially with regards to the variations within the actuation gear of the bridge movement. But I could not locate this particular bridge which, as we know, I will try and recreate in 1:160 on my N-scale model railway. Yesterday evening I finally found where the bridge once stood. Once, this is The Netherlands, remember, unlike e.g. Britain a nation of fanatical cleaner-uppers of stuff no longer in use and to the average eye unlikely to bring in more tourists. These two drawbridges could be found at Wormerveer. They have fairly recently been scrapped and replaced with higher positioned modern bridges to the best of my present knowledge. The three-track one was located close to the West of Wormerveer station and the two-track one of the same Netherlands Railways standard type near the Papenpad, which loosely translates as the Papists Alleyway.
The really interesting one is this one though. I couldn’t get it any bigger so enlarge it on your screen if necessary. The location was in the Zaanlijn from Amsterdam via Zaandam to Uitgeest and Alkmaar, in fact the first route Stanley Hall and I travelled in the year 2000 on our quest to find out about Automatic Train Protection in The Netherlands. And also part of the last trip (2005) ever that I made at the controls of a train, from Nijmegen via Arnhem, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Zaandam and Alkmaar to Den Helder and back. Furthermore, going through my slide and negative files I actually found the contact prints that proved I had already noticed this bridge before and took colour pics, sometime in the early 1980’s. Unfortunately, in the course of several moves within NL and the UK I must have lost those negatives. Never mind, a tot of single malt calmed the resulting frayed nerves and there still is enough material to work with. These pics come from the municipal archives of Zaandam, the Gemeente Archief Zaanstad (GAZ). To start with we can see that the Zaan line had been electrified. Notice the stanchion of the catenary in the right margin and the “fingers” of the wire contacts for those across the bridge sticking out from the left margin above the coach. The electrification went into service in 1931, when main line traffic became operated with sets of 1924 EMU stock. The vehicle involved, however, is an 1890’s vintage steam loco-hauled 3rd-class typical HSM Holland Railway (no clerestories) wooden vehicle on Fox type “English” bogies (trucks). There is, incidentally, precisely such a vehicle in the Railway Museum in Utrecht, they were in service till about 1950. This picture therefore in all likelihood concerns steam-hauled stock of a train for the line to Purmerend, Hoorn, Enkhuizen and Medemblik; the section from Hoorn to Medemblik nowadays operating as a museum steam line. The picture of the green drawbridge at Medemblik I sent previously, with the diesel hauled teak-built tram crossing it, comes from that particular line. It is clear that there is no non-wired gap in the catenary across this Papenpad drawbridge, similar to the three-track version of this bridge near the station on pics two and three. On this picture the 1.5 kV DC “ladders” along which the pantographs slide in happier circumstances can be made out between the bridge deck and the arms of the balance lift equipment. What can be seen clearly is the “Panama-Wheel” actuating gear in its opened position, very typical equipment for these Netherlands Railways standard bridges according to the railway engineering manual from the 1930’s. I haven’t found any other example of this type of bridge away from West Friesland, the area between the Zuyder Zee and the North Sea to the North of Amsterdam, which was HSM Holland Railway territory. Compare that with the same equipment on the attached other two pictures of this type of bridge in the closed position. The reason these Panama Wheels were used is that they allowed the use of cheap and simple 50 Hz three-phase AC electric motors. Which, however, had no speed-controls as DC motors allowed, for which reason they could not be varied in speed in those days. That would require expensive stuff such as Ward-Leonard equipment, but to spend on installation and maintenance of that crane equipment was nonsense when thinking of how often this bridge would be operated in comparison to, say, a harbour crane. Ans so, to enable a well-controlled operation of the bridge, the Panama-wheel. If you follow the movement of this Panama Wheel then you can imagine that right at the start (0 degrees) and at the end (180 degrees) of the movement it performs slowly, its full speed with the bridge deck only occurs at half-way point (90 degrees) through the half-circle. At the end of its 180 degree turn, because it slowed the movement right down again, it is easy to stop the movement with buffers and an automatic switch. Additionally, the bridge deck can’t go anywhere, an arrangement that can be noticed in the way that in the open position the whole excellently designed assembly fits flat together. For road bridges of this type the stretched Panama Wheel “pre-loads” the bridge deck on to its seats when down, and thus will prevent it from dancing on its stops in case of heavy traffic passing over the gap between road and bridge deck. This was different on the railways: they demanded that the closed bridge deck behaved as a fixed bridge and additionally they took measures to ensure that no vibrations could pass from the bridge deck into the gear above. In the case of these particular types bridges they had steel cables between the balance beams and the bridge deck that would go slack in the down position; these can be vaguely seen in this photo. The big old four-track bridge in Amsterdam that started this all had a slotted connection which, when unloading from hanging tension after seating the bridge deck on its stops, physically disconnected the hangers from the balance beams to the bridge deck. Wonderful stuff, really, instantly understandable for anyone with a little bit of a technical eye.
Now, the interesting bit: what happened here? This bridge was clearly opened for the well-loaded barge, a type of a historical and present day still much used vessel known as a dekschuit in Dutch. You can tow or push them with a tug and, as probably was the case here, have the crew use poles to punt them along in narrow waters: they didn’t often come in motorized versions, certainly not in the scores of fairly shallow rural waterways found in the West of The Netherlands. Between the prescribed regular dredges to ensure they are usable as drains (see the lock door in the foreground) these may be abundantly filled with weed and snag your propeller. Such vessels have no holds normally, all cargo is stowed on deck and they are used for a wide variety of jobs. The picture I sent of the former bow-string bridge and its renewed drawbridge across the Spaarne at Haarlem show a few dekschuiten used by the contractor working on the piers for the new bridge. By the looks of it the skipper on this one, standing aft, was just about midway sailing the gap under the railway when this attack on his tranquil existence occurred. Was he smoking a pipe, as tales intimate was what skippers did? If so, what happened to it?Looking at the underside of the bridge deck we notice that the reinforced bit for the tracks is actually behind the coach, so the coach could not have been rolling on a track that would cross the bridge. Also, the absence of a steam locomotive, poised to take swimming lessons instead of this coach, indicates the fact that this coach was propelled, pushed. All together this points at the fact that the coach was pushed into a siding and rolled fairly violently through the bufferstops on the left side of this picture. Its speed, and probably the mass of the vehicles coupled to it, are indicated by the fact that it jumped the gap and hit the bridge deck at the other side, then, having lost its bogie, started to come down towards the water but -luckily- found the dekschuit and settled on its cargo. This, therefore, undoubtedly is the result of a rather iffy shunting/switching move. The question still to be asked being whether the locomotive was attached and the driver made a cock-up with the brakes. In that case probably using the locomotive brake rather than the train brake; we all did that when we didn’t want to have to pump the brake pipe back to pressure every time a vehicle was removed or added. Or, worse, the loco crew and shunter “kicked” the set (afstoten, fly-shunted it) and the shunter and his steel brake scotch (remschoen) on the track, assuming that was the idea to stop the movement of the set in that case, was insufficient to get it to stop in time. It happened before and probably still happens these days if there is no inspector near. Would really love to read the crew reports on this one but anyway, it wasn’t a glorious moment with regards to railway efficiency. Sincerely hope the skipper was OK, probably besides a smelly trouserful. Removing the 35 tonne coach probably was a mite more difficult than at first sight imagined, as floating derricks or cranes could in all likelihood not be brought in proper position near the stricken vehicle resting comfortably on the bales. The only viable place to put some effort in lifting probably is the gappy bridge track nearest the coach, where a railway crane could be positioned at half way next to the coach. You can only hope that vehicle gets scotched to prevent it rolling according to all applicable regulations. The things that may upset your working days on the tracks; eh? This one, stemming from a silly small shunting/switching incident, is fascinating. Wonder what all the accompanying sounds were like. Especially hopping off the track, hitting that bridge and the cursing and swearing of the skipper.
Utrechts Volksblad of Monday Jan 16th, 1939, dating the accident to the previous Saturday: At about 12 o’clock, whilst shunting an empty passenger train, one of the carriages ended up in the passage of the bridge over the Papenpadsloot, which bridge was opened to allow a wood barge to pass through. The man on the barge was still able to put himself in time in safety, so that no personal accidents occurred. The fall of the passenger carriage on the barge, which has now largely sunk, gave a blow, which was audible far into the circumference. The damage to the passenger carriage and probably also to the bridge, is considerable. The train traffic in the direction of Alkmaar and Enkhuizen is experiencing this accident, which is a few hundred meters north of the station Zaandam, as a major nuisance. The railways have rushed in buses, which will transfer the travellers from the direction of Alkmaar from the station Koog-zaanstad to the station Zaandam, where they can continue their journey to the capital by Train. Only on the interlocking between the stations Zaandam and Koog-zaanstad there can be no trains, but as a result the train traffic on the sidelines to Enkhuizen is Impossible. The railways consider that the passengers, who have to make use of this line, have to transport buses from Purmerend to Zaandam and Vice Versa. Work cars from Amsterdam will come to start the clearance Work. The bridge-keeper, who has opened the railway bridge for the Wood-barge navigation, was not blamed for it. He had the message of the signalman that this could be done safely. Contrary to the rules, the rear car of the long passenger train, which was to be shunted, does not seem to have had a man who could warn the Machinist.
That rider at the far end of the train would have had the air brake to stop the movement by either pulling an emergency brake handle in his carriage or, as is done on many networks, attach a portable brake valve to the brake pipe connection to stop the move from his end. Furthermore, what surprises me is the fact that an opened drawbridge of this type and size is not exactly invisible as such, especially in flat countryside as the Zaan area is. So non-adherence to given rules by staff as well as an apparent lack of bother to observe signals and the state of the road ahead of their train (however difficult that probably was) once more strongly appear to have been the root-cause of an incident. I wonder, incidentally, how come the requisite signals such as the platform starting signal apparently did not obviously enough show stop or cease all shunt-movement aspects to protect the opened bridge: the driver or his fireman should most certainly have observed those before starting the movement.
Hi all, show this picture really enlarged on your screens, Just another nice picture of the old Kattensloot railway drawbridges in Amsterdam. As can be seen the railway lines are not yet electrified, which puts this photograph in the years before 1927. The clothing of people on the streets as well as the lack of motorised vehicles (one bus, probably the one from Centraal Station to Sloterdijk, coming our way) bear out this date as well. Notice the electric tramlines with the rather fancy masts that carry the wires. These days this is the terminating point at the Prinseneiland of tram number 3, which for the 16 years I lived in the city I could see (and hear) coming past from my third floor apartment in Bosboom Toussaintstraat. The Amsterdam tram had been electrified between 1900 and 1906, which puts the year of this picture having been made between 1906 and 1927. Going by that modernist Art Deco building, however, but also by the lack of any sign of the coming electrification of the railway, my bet is the second half of the 1910’s to the first half of the 1920’s. I don’t actually know what that rather nice Art Deco building next to the railway line is, to the left of the viaduct across the road; for all I know it might still be there, as the city was not much damaged during WWII. It did, however, suffer from a few crass “modernisation” urges by those in charge during the fifties and sixties, which might have cut short its happy life into the 21st Century. Turn left after the viaduct ahead of you and you’re heading for the Prins Hendrikkade and Centraal Station. On a boat one could take a starboard turn just after the bridge (you can actually see the entrance under the drawbridge) and then enter the Haarlemmer trekvaart, the old canal towards the city of Haarlem from the long gone days when the inter-city public transport was provided by (in this case frequent) horse-drawn barges (to draw = trekken in Dutch. A vaart is a navigable stretch of water, usually a canal). Passed the bit under this bridge quite a few times in my days as tourist guide on those glass-topped tourist launches, invariably doing specials. The Kattensloot and the Singelgracht following from it were not on the normal one-hour routes. If, incidentally, you’d still sail on and then bear right into the Kostverlorenvaart and then the Schinkel you’d pass A) the Western end of the Vondelpark and then you are well on your way to the Nieuwe Meer and Ringvaart, along which you’d B) get close to Schiphol Airport. On turning into the Nieuwe Meer toward the Ringvaart there was, unfortunately, a very low bridge that could only be passed on the condition that no-one would lift his or her head higher than the roof of the boat, for which reason standard practice was to use the public address system for some stringent advice on the subject. We once had a job taking a group of US visitors to the airport this way and one gent unfortunately started his long flight home with a rather an interesting collection of bandaging and sticking plasters covering his pate. And, I would imagine, quite a lively headache as well. In the sunny and warm weather the two sliding roof hatches had been opened and he had been just that bit too eager to take a picture of the undoubtedly scenic stretch of the Nieuwe Meer through the Amsterdam Forest (well, forest) ahead. I still am singularly grateful his head did not end up between the roof of the boat and the underside of the bridge. Can’t stand blood, let alone someone’s brain matter to be inspected by all and sundry. And oh yes, there is a steam locomotive with a gleaming brass steam dome (without the formerly officially prescribed Ramsbottom safety valve on top, but with a just visible Coale safety valve in front of the cab) approaching from the right along the Northern inbound track. Spotting something shiny against the smokebox under the chimney (the steam bell for use on branch lines) and looking at the proportions of the machine, it is a 1915 vintage, Werkspoor Amsterdam built, 2’B2′ (4-4-4) tank locomotive (tenderlocomotief), formerly HSM Holland Railway 806-812 but from 1917 onward NS Netherlands Railways series 5806-5812, doing its last miles with a local from Zaandam to Amsterdam Centraal and maybe beyond. After the 1917 merger all six were based at Amsterdam Centraal and Amsterdam Weesperpoort sheds only, and that would put this picture after 1917 but before 1927. Also because, following electrification, they all were farmed out to depots well away from Amsterdam. Funny to see that thin ragged cloud of rising smoke from the funnel, as if the fireman is putting coal on before the stop at CS. Maybe that is what is happening, to ensure the coal is burning hot and fairly free of smoke before stopping under the train shed at CS. This ensures there’s enough pressure available to get away, without filling the station with dense and acrid smoke before departure. Enjoyed watching the fireman on a Great Western “Castle” class 2’C (ten-wheeler or 4-6-0) go wrong at Temple Meads on this issue and smoke out the train shed whilst doing some shunting. That was either bad coal or a bad fireman. I am intrigued by the why and what of those shapes protruding from the left margin. And no graffiti; what a relief! Just what looks like remains of posters against the bridge.
Netherlands Railways has never been known for throwing money to obtain equipment if that wasn’t strictly necessary. And a massive three track drawbridge that I have the temerity to try and build across a somewhat minor waterway would precisely be what any Dutch railwayman would get the hiccups from trying to suppress scathing laughter. If opening bridges were already required in those circumstances they’d very likely would put in a lifting bridge hoisted by four rather unobtrusive pillars. Many are the examples around the country, and a three-track bridge would in that case not really a problem. Yet I’d like a bascule bridge. I found these pictures of a smaller-double track example, The Spoorbrug Alkmaar that spans the ancient North Holland canal, seems about the right one to go for. It would not unduly tax my (lately badly under-used) skills as a modeller and I could actually decide to put in that Panama-wheel drive as shown on the one in Medemblik in my previous mail on the subject, instead of the cogged diagonals driven by a cog-wheel inside the uprights of the bridge as shown here. There are examples of that on bridges that were taken out.
Pic number 1 shows the bridge being used by a Plan V EMU, a type of electric train introduced in fairly large numbers as two-car units between the 60’s and the 80’s (in fact, the oldest ones appeared in the then de-rigueur green livery and were painted yellow later in their lives). They are all out of use now.
Pic 2 gives us a view across the bridge-deck showing various details.
Pic 3 shows a VIRM double deck unit from Nijmegen and Arnhem via Utrecht to Amsterdam, Alkmaar and Den Helder crossing. This is a bit of history for me: A friend who was a Dutch tutor-driver and who passed away earlier this year shortly after retirement took me on a nine-hour job in 2005, on just this service along this route and I passed that bridge. It was the last time ever that I drove a train. As you can see the bridge has no catenary: like we did on the Southern here in the UK the driver shuts off and his train takes this gap un-powered. Like on the Southern, there is a risk that the train gets stopped with its pantograph (third rail shoes) in the gap: it happened and in that case the train is gapped, as the term is on the Southern. Another issue is that Dutch electric rolling stock had limiters on the reach of the pan: a driver did not have to lower the pantograph but rolled through the gap with the pan up and would therewith find his line-light light up when his pan got juiced-up again and he could open up. The appearance of foreign rolling stock without those limiters on the Dutch network soon showed the use of fitting electrified catenary on the bridge: a French TGV high speed train lost its pantographs on the original Amsterdam to Leiden airport line on such a drawbridge. Which brings us to the why of nu such equipment having been fitted here? The answer is that the height of the portal across the tracks is insufficient as well as the tail of the balance being too long in case of this bridge. I know that the line from Alkmaar to Amsterdam was electrified in 1931 but that the section from Alkmaar to Den Helder, in which this bridge is located, was only electrified in 1958. Which is when this bridge was built to replace the old revolving bridge. Given that this bridge is very close to Alkmaar station it does make you wonder why no measures were taken to ensure that trains never got stuck. In this case one thing that obstructs an upgrade of electrification across the bridge is the tail end of the balance with the counterweight, which would touch the wires and push them to the ground. So in my case I’d make the portal of the bridge higher and possibly redesign the balance to fall beside or in-between the tracks. There is a video on the internet that shows an electric train crossing this bridge with its pan raised, incidentally (type in Spoorbrug Alkmaar). Notice furthermore the red lights for the pedestrians/ bicyclists crossing, the closed barriers as the bridge is about to be opened, the Automatic Half Barrier just beyond the bridge and the obligatory stop boards for trains that popped up from somewhere below. One hopes that the covering signals are showing red aspects and that Automatic Train Protection catches out those drivers who missed them. No joke, read US railway history about a few high-casualty accidents with trains on lifting bridges.
Another bit of Ruminating on Railways 