61264 B1 Locomotive hits the buffers at Norwich 

Hammond! You’ve crashed the B1 into the Buffers!

Might not seem like a major incident to some of you but the shear amount of metal involved in that impact is very substantial. The locomotive alone weighs over 70 ton alone, add the tender at 50 ton then consider all the coal and water aboard, then take into account its moving and you can see why even small accidents can result in pretty severe damage for both the locomotive and track equipment.

My grandfather prided himself in just "kissing" the buffers and never being so heavy on the regulator as to spin the wheels and cause railburn.

“Granville, fetch a mop this footplate is swimming and it isn’t from the tender.”

Onlookers taking photos: "I can't see a thing" "Look through the eyepiece" 😆

Okay so I think I've read every comment in this thread. Nobody has mentioned what happens INSIDE a boiler with a sudden 'stop'. The water surges forward [boilers don't have baffles in them]. This exposes the CROWN SHEET [flat steel plate above the firebox]. The crown sheet will have at least one, most likely two FUSIBLE PLUGS fitted in it. These are designed to melt very quickly if not kept cool by the [usual] water above them. Fusible plugs are designed to protect a boiler from irreparable damage caused by an overheated crown sheet. They do this by discharging steam downwards onto the fire. The whole process works well - but... If the firebox door happens to be open at the time [highly likely in this incident as the fireman is trying to cool the fire down a bit after steaming into the station with a full load, but now just light engine for shunting] then this sudden steam discharge blows back into the cab, sometime including hot coals. NOT healthy for all those on board the footplate at the time. [This is why footplate crew attire is mandated as long sleeves, long legs, cotton, NOT polyester material - in most parts of the world, anyway. A.K.A. a boiler suit!] The other reason I call bollocks on the whole premise that this was all planned, 'to use the energy imparted into the buffer springs to rebound the loco for a quicker reversing', is that any 'extra persons' standing in the middle of the footplate would be thrown onto the very hot backhead of the boiler by the sudden stop. More injuries! So, no, not an acceptable practice in anybody's book, very dangerous, and I expect the UK's rail safety body would have had quite a bit to say to that driver :-( My two cents worth, from a tourist railway steam driver on the other side of the planet ;-)

It was his plan to use the bounce for a speedy reverse with just a touch of wheelslip to put on a show

Driver: "I thought pressing those big buttons changed the points!"

Aside from all the comments about what happened, why it happened and what the driver should and shouldn't have done, I just wanted to say something about the locomotive itself. 61264 was the only LNER locomotive to be sent to Barry Scrapyard. Thankfully (as is quite obvious here) it was saved along with many others that were sent there. Hopefully if it returns to the mainline one day it will never be treated like this again.

When Network Rail are probably finding excuses to take steam off the the UK rails this isn't exactly the best example to set 😳

Bet his mates take the pess over it, naughty. Lol Nice to know the buffers actually work anyway, probably the only time they get tested.

I would say that they had brake failure and the driver was trying to get it into reverse to stop it hitting the buffers. Sadly a bit too late. This would account for the reverse wheel slip after the collision. Also, it is highly likely that the abrupt stop would cause the boiler water to surge and be picked up throught the regulator valve. This would then flow into the superheaters and flash to steam with no control as it is being generated after the regulator valve.

I'm sure the station manager was well impressed with all that soot

Good to see that people are on the safe side of the platform

As Harry Enfield would say ‘you didn’t want to do that’

Best bit is the look of casual confidence on the driver at 01:22 as he sails happily towards a blatantly visible dead end.

“No brakes! No brakes!” (coasting) “This is not stopping!” (still coasting) “Please stop!”

B1 immediately after hitting the buffers: IT FUCKING TOUCHED ME!!!

1:40 is EPIC with all that steam! Slick driving 😂

Don’t worry about the brakes I’ll just chuck it in reverse…which lever is reverse!

The thing that struck me about this is that after the bounce back the crew did n't seem to be in control for a few seconds with an engine moving back towards carriages possibly with people still in them or alighting which could've caused injury to those passengers. This was something quite different to the engine just 'kissing' the buffers which I know must've happened regularly in the past and where everyone just carried on. I find it strange that professional railwaymen seem to miss this point and argue about 'boil in the bag ' drivers. As I'm not a professional railwayman maybe I'm missing something here and so I'd be the first to admit that.

Man wearing a tie on the footplate. Nicely designed loco with comfort for the crew.

My grandfather was manager of LNER. I've travelled on many a steam train as a nipper. Grandad said they did this as either laziness (don't want to wait for the change from forward to reverse) or what i think this guy did was to impress the cameras. Either one may fit. As to the comments he misjudged, this bloke has done this a zillion times and you can see him watching the buffers and only moved at the last moment. Pushing the water forward jams open the regulator, called 'priming' and this gives more power, but can lead to slip if the regulator is opened to soon.

You weren’t concentrating, Thomas. Lucky for you if the buffers were there.

I think the driver was remiss in not only having hitting the buffers hard but in immediately reversing hell for leather before verifying that nothing was broken, including the track.

Saw a 47 do that in Eastbourne once makes a hell of a bang

Reverse was stuck so they gave it a big shove and it worked 🤣🤣🤣👍🏻

Would the bounce off the buffers have caused some priming to occur and that's why the wheel slip afterwards? Also some commenters here seem to be saying that drivers would bounce off the buffer stops on purpose in the old days. Why was that done? I used to work on the railway here in Canada when I was very young and I know sometimes the train crew would try a banned manoeuvre that used to be common "just to try it out". Could that be what happened here, or more likely just misjudgement of the locomotive's speed, braking force necessary and distance to go? I'm a pilot now and as you all know, not every landing is the prettiest.

"Buffers don't like to be eaten."

If a bit of modern traction did that there would be all sorts of consequences, investigations etc. And the way he reversed. What was that all about? Dangerous.

dude as soon as i saw him going for the buffers i started yelling “BRO APPLY THE F_______ BRAKES UR GOIN TOO FAST TO STOP PERFECTLY AT THE BUFFERS-“

A lot has changed since then. Much more stringent standards. Remember the Wooton Basset Jn incident which made everyone take note

“Lucky the buffers were there to stop you, Thomas!”

Great video and capture of an unusual incident. I guess driving by brail isn't in the handbook!

It's how it used to be done apparently the recoil saves time. 😂

Made the onlookers jump a little 🤣

Be interesting to read the incident report and find out what really happened.

#61264: Ouch! Hey watch it driver!

I do hope she didn't sustain any damage, and I hope both driver and fireman are alright as a result, that was a fair clang, and it's a damn good thing the buffers are there realistically, otherwise, it could have been a lot worse

In the words of Sir Bruce Forsyth “Didn’t they do well?”

I wish they'd do this at Norwich with the entire fleet of the Class 745s. Should be mandatory in the Rule Book!

Amazing keep up the great work I’ve subbed

Oh! It's like watching a swimmer's turn.

Any Damage?

For a casual watcher, not a devotee, to encounter this video and see what appears to be a mistake, it's very depressing indeed to read the usual exchanges of aggression in the comments. I'd have thought they'd have contained knowledge, simple possible explantions of differences of opinion. Instead there's the usual emegence of faction and opinionatedness; the immediate recourse to sarcasm, trying to neutralise the occurrence and attempting one-upmanship over other commentators. There's hardly ever an ordinarily spoken person who's not trying to be a comedian, offering either a lifetime's knowlede in an unaggressive straightforward way. To see and to hear that now noticeable ordinariness ridiculed into near extinction in public life I have to watch Pathé newsreels.

Well, at least we now know that the buffer stop works properly

Don`t PANIC. ...Sir, I`d like to be the one not to Panic, Mr. Mainwaring

That was a cock-up of enormous proportions and so many things went wrong. The initial speed looked fine and then more steam was added. Why? Matey boy in the white suit was just a passenger wearing the clothes for photos. A crew member would have been monitoring the closing rate with the buffers. When the buffers were struck, we could see a tremendous over-reaction. Engaging reverse gear takes some time so this was selected before the collision. Maybe striking the buffers was foreseen. Wouldn’t brakes have been better? Also, why so much steam? This inept driving style continued to the runaround loop. If this was training then the instructor should be interviewed. If it was a passed driver then maybe more training is required. The takeaway from this is when things go wrong STOP. Take a breath. Then think… Hopefully the engine, the buffers and rail were inspected.

Enough with the nasty comments. The Seeing Eye Dog was doing the best he could.

Trouble ahead trouble behind and you know that notion just crossed my mind

Just after he hits the buffers, was there a reason that he opened the engine revved up or was it just out of surprise?

But why all the sudden wheelslip? Surely slamming on the brakes would be more efficient

I guess Thomas was right "that's what buffers are for to stop engine from crashing"

I think the driver forgot to slow the train down and that's why it hit the buffers

The bearded driver looks like the captain of the Titanic.

One way to engage slip-eccentric reversers...

why does it look like Simon pegg is too the right of the screen at 1:44

Seen this a lot - at many stations. Good job by the designers!

Well that was awkward. What a great pity that only 2 B1's were spared out of a possible 409. I blame Albert Draper....

I can't understand this - it looked like they deliberately hit it, as if they were trying to dislodge something.

Oh dear that didn’t look good

HAMMOND YOU BLOODY TINY DWARF YOU HIT THE BUFFERS! STIG IS ASHAMED!

Back in the day no one even raise an eye about this sort o thing

Alright, we just hit the buffers. Now lemme throw the regulator in the corner and fuck the rails and wheels up and overspeed the important bits.

I know that man. He don't seem to be getting any older!

If he had brought the train in and done that would have injuries to passengers,

At least buffers are inherently designed to absorb some impact.

Traintown irl, only the player didn’t switch the track when the train hit the invisible blue flag

Momentum = Mass x Velocity.

Don't some steam engines bump buffers so they can reverse backwards faster?

1:34 SpongeBob: You're good, you're good, you're good...and stop."

Banging into the buffers - a bit careless, I would say and 'wheel-slip', the mark of boy racers! It is damaging to the track and no better for loco wheels and needs to be avoided!

I think he had a spot of brake failure. I don't make this mistake playing Train Sim World. Not being familiar with British locomotives, I'm not sure how this happened, but a light engine normally stops quickly, and it doesn't seem like he needed to pull so far forward to clear the points.

Buffers don’t like to be eaten :/

😂 I guess that's one way to reverse an engine

Flattened the buffers 😢

Not a good way to treat a restored loco, despite the comments, I think this was nothing more than nor paying attention 😔

Quick back shuttle … make it look like we intended to bounce off the buffers haha …

When she hit the buffers why was there black smoke coming out of her?

Standard procedure in the old days. it speeds up the revers movement.

Yup, buffers definitely work here then, carry on.

The engineers don't wave from the trains anymore, not like they back in 1954.

"The personnel dept at their finest"! (only let him drive because he had a white beard!) !

great video!

The fat controller wont be happy

The fat controller must have been quite cross at this one that day.

1:40 OOPS 😬 watch out for them buffers

its my first day said the driver anyway great video

It is interesting that locomotives can still run round at Norwich.

What is a Buffer?

Should’ve gone to Specsavers.

1:38 THE ENGINE GOT SCARED 😭😭😭😭

A disgrace really they didnt seem very concerned. Proper steam engine drivers will turn in their graves. They were revered in those days.

This may not be the case here but it was quite common to “smack/kiss” the buffers in stations and it was a far faster way or reversing directions while shunting.

CLARKSON!!

what are buffers?

At least it’s still okay

Bit slow with the vacuum brake.

Steam engines are all different. They take a lot of getting to know.

Wouldnt let him park my car