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Toppling Tescos Troubles Transport (plus irony) Friday, July 1, 2005

#1 User is offline   Chyld Icon

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Posted 01 July 2005 - 02:26 AM

QUOTE
Tunnel collapse puts £20m store in doubt
Friday July 1, 2005

Construction of a £20m Tesco supermarket which was being built on top of a railway tunnel was thrown into doubt last night after the tunnel collapsed.

Tonnes of rubble spilled on to the line at Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire just before 8pm, causing disruption to Chiltern Railway services. Commuters on the Midlands to London line face at least two days of travel chaos.

One of the company's drivers, whose train was in Gerrards Cross station at the time, raised the alarm, and trains on the line between Marylebone station in London and Birmingham were immediately halted.

No one is thought to have been injured in the collapse. Safety inspectors were examining the scene last night and passengers have been warned to expect severe disruptions while they try to discover what caused the collapse.

British Transport police said the line would be blocked for at least two days.

A spokesman for Chiltern Railways said last night: "No one has been injured and there were no trains in the tunnel when it collapsed. Passengers are being advised to travel via alternative routes and buses have been ordered. We are currently putting arrangements in place to minimise disruption."

Tesco's plans to put a supermarket on the site in Gerrards Cross had prompted protests from local residents who feared the new store would act as a traffic magnet and dominate the area.

Work on the site had been taking place during five-hour shifts at night after the last trains to and from London had gone at 1am.

Once the site was clear, lorries and cranes brought in the 400 concrete arches needed to support hundreds of thousands of tonnes of earth, rubble, and the new store itself.

A Tesco spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that a section of rail tunnel at our new Gerrards Cross site has collapsed. Thankfully, we understand that no one has been hurt but rail services are obviously disrupted, for which we apologise. We have launched an ur gent investigation with our engineer contractors and will work with the authorities to understand what happened and get rail services back to normal as soon as possible."

She said the new supermarket was in the "very early" stages of construction.

Chris Waterman, who was on his way home when he heard about the collapse, had to catch a train to Amersham instead of Gerrards Cross.

"What I can't believe, having gone under these concrete arches, is that the engineers could have got it so wrong," he said. "But I suppose it could have been the massive amount of rain we've had."

Mr Waterman added: "Some people will be very happy about this, but I personally think it was quite a good use of space."

John Memery, a member of the local action group which campaigned against the store, said: "I think it's a bit of a disaster and it's put the whole project in jeopardy. Local people didn't want the store but they had got resigned to it.

"At best, it will considerably increase the cost of the project, and at worst, it will have to be abandoned."

Meanwhile, in Yorkshire, one person died and five others suffered minor injuries when a train hit a car on a level crossing.

British Transport police said the accident happened on a crossing between Thorne and Goole in East Yorkshire at about 6.25pm.

The dead man was in the car and the injured people were on the train, a police spokesman said.

http://www.guardian....1518963,00.html


Several things to note:

1.) Just so nobody's missed the point, people in Gerry's X didn't want the Tesco, and it came down as soon as it opened. Its a hell of a lot more amusing than the Guardian makes it out to be.

2.) Why are all the trains being re-routed by me? Amersham (my crib) isn't anywhere near Gerrards Cross, or indeed its station. I bet they just wanted to put us on a map for a day or two.

3.) What's a train crash in Yorkshire got to do with it? Are they pretending to make this story relevant to me?
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#2 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 01 July 2005 - 09:55 AM

[quote]Passengers are being advised to travel via alternative routes and buses have been ordered.[/qoute]

Well thank you for advising people not to travel through collapsed tunnels, I'm sure they needed the advice.

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Posted 01 July 2005 - 06:25 PM

Strange that Tesco seems to get the blame for this. Network rail were the ones building a tunnel. Tesco just had the bright idea to build a supermarket on top.

(which just to clarify for Chyld, they hadn't gotten round to doing yet)
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#4 User is offline   Chyld Icon

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Posted 01 July 2005 - 06:54 PM

Yeah, but apparently, no one in Gerrys X was up for having a Tesco there anyway, and I think the tunnel kinda had to be put there. I blame rain. Or gods. Whatever.
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Posted 02 July 2005 - 06:57 AM

Now come on Chyld. You know as well as I do when a 'John Memery, member of the local action group' says 'no-one' he really means himself, his wife, and the other middle class tossers in the area with shares in Sainsburys.
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Posted 02 July 2005 - 08:17 AM

QUOTE (Chyld @ Jul 1 2005, 07:26 AM)
3.) What's a train crash in Yorkshire got to do with it? Are they pretending to make this story relevant to me?


I think they wanted to show that even if the measly humans had escaped certain death in the tunnel collapse, they sure got what they had coming in the Yorkshire thing. devil.gif
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Posted 03 July 2005 - 10:34 AM

Nice. Very nice.

And the blame would be on the Tesco engineers. The way I read the article, the tunnel was already there, and was designed to hold the earth above it. When Tesco came along, they should have inspected the tunnel to make sure that it was strong enought to support the store on top. As such, they dropped the ball.
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Posted 03 July 2005 - 11:24 AM

Tesco's not a engineering firm, they're a supermarket retailer. They don't build tunnels.

Media slant y'see. A couple of friends of mine up in Dundee work for Tesco head office, and according to them the store hasn't even been built yet. Not anywhere near the tunnel anyway. Network rail were supposed to be reinforcing the tunnel before they could start, which they evidently did a very bad job of.
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#9 User is offline   Chyld Icon

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Posted 03 July 2005 - 12:56 PM

Apparently, the towns rather vehmant objections to the scheme were over-ruled by the fatman himself, Johnny Prescott. And also, they've never tried building a supermarket on a train tunnell before. And also, since its Britain, its been raining a shedload. Do we need any more reasons not to build there?
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Posted 03 July 2005 - 03:56 PM

So let me get this straight... there are heavy delays and cancellation of services... If this is news, then you would never need any other story, atleast in Britain anyway.

This post has been edited by Dr Lecter: 03 July 2005 - 03:57 PM

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#11 User is offline   Chyld Icon

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Posted 07 July 2005 - 06:09 AM

Just so we all know, this is a cross-section of the tunnel that was supposed to support an entire supermarket:



Yes, that thing is barely wider than I am.

This post has been edited by Chyld: 07 July 2005 - 06:10 AM

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Posted 07 July 2005 - 06:17 AM

God bless british engineering.
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Posted 07 July 2005 - 10:58 AM

And I thought that Portuguese tunnels and construction projects were the worse.
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