As we reported at the weekend Nottingham Express Transit 229 was involved in a collision with a lorry in the city centre on Saturday 3rd June – the second incident involving a Citadis tram in the city centre in a little over a week. With thanks again to David Beardsell we can now bring you some photos from the scene showing the aftermath of the incident.
It seems that the truck pulled out into the path of the tram from a side street along Victoria Street – Bridlesmith Gate. 229 suffered damage to its offside windscreen pillar and a fair bit of panel damage.
Looking down towards Old Market Square we see 229 and the lorry in situ following the collision.
A closer up image of the collision.
The impact of the tram into the side of the lorry can be ascertained in this image with the damage to the windscreen obvious.
The lorry has now been moved and the damage to the front of 229 can once again be seen in more detail.
229 was driven wrong line onto Broadmarsh Viaduct from the undamaged end and was shunted onto the outbound track. This view shows the tram with the damaged end closest to the camera. After this photo was taken the tram was driven back to depot from the damaged end. (All Photographs by David Beardsell)
There are some interesting and slightly worrying points about this. Firstly how come the tram hit a large slow moving vehicle that had already pulled so far across the road?
Second, with a damaged tram and therefore potentially 750v damaged equipment, why did nobody at the scene, including the Fire service, isolate the car from the power by lowering the pantograph?
Third, how come a tram with such severe bodywork damage was allowed to be driven back to depot under it’s own power. It may have been checked over mechanically, but there were still a lot of dangerous exposed sharp edges etc.
Am quite happy to let qualified industry experts assess operational decisions who were actually on site and made the assessment of how best to recover the tramcar… rather than one individual (or group of individuals) hiding behind pretty blatant pseudo identity online relying on fraction of the information and few pictures…
Its my personal view (and can say so as an individual not affiliated formally with any organisation) your continued assault online of the various groups & tramways represents the very worst of the enthusiast community.
I wonder what was the point of taking the tram to Broadmarsh Viaduct, to then retrace its steps past the scene of the accident, in order to reach the depot at Wilkinson Street.
I also wonder why the Unimog wasn’t used to tow it back to the depot.
I am told, on good authority, that the NET Unimog isn’t permitted to haul trams outside the depot. Rerailling 235 the other day wasn’t clearly an exceptional case. If it couldn’t have returned under it’s own power there’s no reason why another tram couldn’t have towed it.
Re your main picture of the week on the home page, NET 230 isn’t continuing its journey to Hucknall, but preparing to reverse and return to either Clifton or Toton lane, as the city-centre section of the system was still closed. Damaged 229 would have to be driven back to Wilkinson Street depot before the whole network could be reopened.