Buried locos

[Westcorkrailway]

Bit of a silly question, but I came across a story of NIR multiple united being burried rather then scraped due to asbestos, and stories of locos under Inchicore. Basically I want to know what Irish stuff is said to have been buried (understanding that most of these are “stories”)

[Jaz avalley]

Disposal of building asbestos is frowned upon near water, I think dunking it in water is likely to cause health issues if the water is drawn into a water treatment, fines etc can be pretty prohibitive. amazed they got away with just pushing it into the water.The picture clearly shows at least two.

[Patrick Davey]

On 24/11/2021 at 4:00 PM, seagoebox said:

Crosshill Quarry, Crumlin, Co. Antrim...

A few pictures from May 1980.....

A mix of MED's But's CIE laminates and Park Royal coaches.

Not quite what the official Hansard record claims regarding wrapping to prevent the exposure to blue asbestos!

Very dramatic shots - like some sort of 'apocalypse' movie scene.......

[Patrick Davey]

A quick look at Google Earth's historical imagery shows vehicles identifiable in 2003, but now the site has been drained........

[Mayner]

Asbestos became a very emotive subject in Ireland as the health risks became known to the general public with an effective ban on the legal disposal of asbestos in the Republic we shifted the problem to Northern Ireland and Germany.

A lot of asbestos waste from Ireland was disposed of in Germany as there were no approved local authority waste sites in the Republic, the joke was the asbestos was removed and transported from Ireland under controlled conditions and tipped into quarries in Germany with minimal controls. The German waste companies both found it very amusing and highly profitable. 

Asbestos in drinking water does not appear to be a significant health risk a lot of watermains are asbestos cement and unlikely to require replacement for many years. Asbestos only becomes a serious health risk when the fibers become air borne very unlikely with saturated fibers, the main risk with high pressure water blasting was the resulting sludge drying out and turning to dust.

[Broithe]

The health issues were known about for many decades before people started living long enough (in large numbers) to be affected by them, before then, something else would usually get you before the 'gestation period' was over. A chap I worked with died from it in the mid-90s - he had spent his first twenty years in the oil industry in the Persian Gulf, then moved into the electrical industry, both heavy users of it, so it was never established where the 'blame' lay. The building we worked in was built in 1917 and regularly modified, with a culture of 'don't ask, don't know' about that sort of thing. And we would be repairing older equipment that often had parts of unknown provenance, Power stations themselves, of course, were awash with it, as were ships, etc. People would recount how they had seen pipes plastered with wet asbestos paste by hand.

It can be in the most 'unlikely' things - vinyl floor tiles and lino are a 'good source' of it, in older buildings - usually safe enough, until you start removing them, as it is in many other situations.

[jhb171achill]

Those of us who have experienced a particularly large number of birthdays will recall early days at Whitehead, when volunteers happily swarmed over several loco boilers and just ripped the stuff off with their bare hands, and threw it in the skip!

I remember Senior doing the same with an old home heating boiler he was removing........

Mad, when you think of it these days!

2 hours ago, Patrick Davey said:

A quick look at Google Earth's historical imagery shows vehicles identifiable in 2003, but now the site has been drained........

 

 

If the area has been drained as shown in that picture, what of the buried asbestos-clad vehicles? Once re-exposed, did they send in contractors to take off the asbestos? Or have they filled it in with landfill? And if so, will buried asbestos affect groundwater there in the future?

 

[Patrick Davey]

12 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

If the area has been drained as shown in that picture, what of the buried asbestos-clad vehicles? Once re-exposed, did they send in contractors to take off the asbestos? Or have they filled it in with landfill? And if so, will buried asbestos affect groundwater there in the future?

 

Exactly my thinking JB......

[K801]

On 25/11/2021 at 8:47 AM, Blaine said:

The quarry was the cheapest and easiest option. Recall seeing pics when the quarry was drained a few years ago, the remains of the various coaches and railcar bodies were still visible

Would like to see the pics

[Barl]

It does look mad to see coaches being disposed of like that but there was probably a lot worse dumped around the country! 

As Mayner has said though it was probably deemed the lesser of two evils - asbestos is only considered dangerous when the fibres become airborne where they can enter the lungs. This is why it's normally better to leave it undisturbed or bury it if possible, with removal being the last option if necessary (given the increased risk that it could become airborne).

I'd be more concerned about the leachate from the other materials breaking down and entering the groundwater than the asbestos.

There's no evidence that asbestos (AC) water mains are harmful to human health so they are also retained and only replaced if absolutely necessary.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Barl

[skinner75]

Plenty of glow-juice dumped in the Irish Sea for years & years, making it the most radioactive sea in the world...

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/sellafield-s-nuclear-pollution-of-the-irish-sea-took-decades-to-achieve-1.157519

[Broithe]

32 minutes ago, skinner75 said:

Plenty of glow-juice dumped in the Irish Sea for years & years, making it the most radioactive sea in the world...

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/sellafield-s-nuclear-pollution-of-the-irish-sea-took-decades-to-achieve-1.157519

The madness of the cavalier attitude is hard to believe -

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14619830-600-lid-blown-off-dounreays-lethal-secret/

 

There an attempt to sort it out just about beginning now, but there's little genuine knowledge about what is actually in there.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-48036793

Edited January 14, 2022 by Broithe

[Broithe]

24 minutes ago, skinner75 said:

 

Why oh why would you dump a big lump of sodium or potassium into water?!?!? In a shaft with radioactive waste too no less!  

People get blasé after a while - and in many industries there is/was often little genuine quality control of the actual process. And there can develop a sort of bravado about "pushing the edges".

People I knew had cause to go to Sellafield and were left with a bit more scepticism than they had before the visits.

I worked where we made stuff that ran at 400kV out in the open air - tested up close to 1,000,000 volts and yet some people had a grasp of electrical principles that was little above witchcraft. One chap I worked with would always attach the earth wire to his watch-strap when working on the mains at home - because it was the "safety wire" - I never managed to get him to understand the reality of what was going to happen...

 

[mphoey]

3 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Those of us who have experienced a particularly large number of birthdays will recall early days at Whitehead, when volunteers happily swarmed over several loco boilers and just ripped the stuff off with their bare hands, and threw it in the skip!

I remember Senior doing the same with an old home heating boiler he was removing........

Mad, when you think of it these days!

If the area has been drained as shown in that picture, what of the buried asbestos-clad vehicles? Once re-exposed, did they send in contractors to take off the asbestos? Or have they filled it in with landfill? And if so, will buried asbestos affect groundwater there in the future?

 

looks like everything is gone from the site since 2006 using historical views yet theres no information online as to what happened to them

 

[jhb171achill]

1 hour ago, mphoey said:

looks like everything is gone from the site since 2006 using historical views yet theres no information online as to what happened to them

 

The RPSI website?

[mphoey]

2 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

The RPSI website?

find that hard to navigate