Page 1 of 6

Spot the splat

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 1:57 pm
by diddydeltic

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 2:18 pm
by Whitemoor
http://east-anglian-rail.fotopic.net/p12857728.html
only look at this is your sure your food is settled!

http://east-anglian-rail.fotopic.net/p13166832.html
doubble kill on this one

http://east-anglian-rail.fotopic.net/p17107338.html
not sure if this qulaifies but il add it anyways


thats all for now
0X

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 2:29 pm
by diddydeltic
Excellent pics there,
Its good to know trains are doing there bit to control bird flu :D

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 2:42 pm
by Whitemoor
its even funnier when your on a train and it his a bird.........i remember when i had just left ely on a 170 headding towards March, we hit a phesant, theres was a thud, and i saw a load of feathers fly by the window and the phesant just bounce on the other side of the track

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 2:45 pm
by diddydeltic
Lifes a bitch being a phesant or pigeon :D

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:57 pm
by baggy6233
So I've heard, on the last trip that 6233 did, she hit a phesant and the body was stuck to the buffer beam and the head was on the front running plate.........then the driver took it home and ate it!!! :lol:

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 4:06 pm
by diddydeltic
Sounds like what happens out here in the countryside, run it over and take it home to eat :D

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 5:51 pm
by chrisiveson
Driving in the inside lane one afternoon on the M1 one hit a car in the fast lane, bounced off it (lots of feathers) onto a car in the middle lane, bounced again (more feathers) and finally onto my car, smashed the left hand headlight. Cost me £85 to fix.':('
Don't think there was much left of it after that!

Chris

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:14 pm
by 1288gaje
i once saw a Wessex speeding past Clapham Junction once
and as the pigeon saw the train it flew towards to platform 8 but immediately the Wessex killed the pigeons, and at the end of the train you could see feathers flying! 8) :P

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:19 pm
by Easilyconfused
I guess it is all down to routine and perception. Birds don't tend to be aware of the speed things travel at. I guess train drivers see this on a regular basis since they can't swerve to avoid animals / people.

When you drive the sort of mileage I do each year you get to see the strangest things. Since I started on our project 9 years ago I have covered over 180,000 miles commuting and business according to my mileage spreadsheet.

During that time I have seen numerous birds splatted by trucks and coaches. Newer coaches have huge mirrors that prove particularly effective at shredding birds and converting them into a cloud of feathers and a solid lump that goes flying across the road.

2 memorable incidents :

One morning just east of M4 Junction 13 a deer jumped the fence onto the eastbound carriageway, sprinted across the 3 live estbound lanes and then jumped the central reserve. The car coming the other way in the "fast" lane hit it and wiped out. At the speed we were travelling we were already hundreds of yards down the road but we called it in anyway. The driver was seriously hurt but survived the immediate accident and was taken to hospital alive. Don't know if they recovered or not - I hope so but it was a huge accident.

Some weeks later westbound at M4 junction 12 the cars in front started to slow down and swerve about. We passed a truck parked on the hard shoulder facing the wrong way and a ton of debris all over the road. Afterwards from the radio reports and going over what we had seen we realised the truck had punched through the central barrier from the other side and crossed 3 lanes of live traffic at 16:30 on a Friday without hitting anything (somehow). No wonder the driver looked a little pale when we passed him :o From our perspective we got away lightly since they shut the road for 4 hours shortly afterwards.

I just goes to show - when your numbers come up that is it.

One of my colleagues was driving up the M5 one day from a diving expedition when the car in front hit the central barrier and shot back across the road before coming to rest on the hard shoulder. He stopped and went to investigate. The windscreen was gone and blood everywhere. The lady driving was totally distraught. She turned out to be unharmed (physically). What had happened was a pheasant had been on the road and got hit by another car and bounced up into her windscreen - shattering that. The ex-pheasant was spread all round the inside of the car - including all over her - hence the distress. Her car was recovered and the RAC arranged for her to be taken home after a visit to the local hospital for a sedative.

Cheers

John

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 9:13 pm
by spartacus
diddydeltic wrote:Sounds like what happens out here in the countryside, run it over and take it home to eat :D
Technically if you hit it and take it home it's illegal (maybe classed as poaching!), although if someone else hits it you take take it free from fear of prosecution. Hit a pheasent up on the North York Moors with my dad a few years ago in a rather comical incident. Pheasent walked out into the road in front of our speeding car, then just turned it's head a split second before disappearing with a fairly loud bang! I expect it just enough time to think "SH............"!
A few years before that my uncle hit a stag in his estate car, which totally wrote off the car, but the stag just walked casually away!

91s seems very prone to picking up birds on the front end, more so than I've noticed with HSTs. Whilst still in INTERCITY livery one turned up at Leeds with the wing of a swallow or swift sticking out of the front grill between the headlights! Quite appropriate, although I doubt the bird saw the funny side.

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 9:45 pm
by baggy6233
Well, that's the Intercity Swallow livery for ya! :lol:

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 10:03 pm
by Easilyconfused
spartacus wrote: A few years before that my uncle hit a stag in his estate car, which totally wrote off the car, but the stag just walked casually away!
Had a similar experience myself - hit a badger with my old Mk 2 Escort. Damn thing ripped the front valance and grill to pieces. I stopped and the blasted thing got up shook itself and wandered off up the road. My car was busy dumping all the coolant out of the shattered radiator and the AA had to take it back to the repair shop to get it fixed. Since I was only 3rd party insured it cost me over £500 to get fixed :(

And no jokes about http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/footy/ please :-)

Cheers


John

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 10:16 pm
by baggy6233
Well, they always say that badgers can be a neusance! :lol:

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 10:17 pm
by davidperks
Not quite in the same league, but I can remember the M42 being closed about 8 years back because of an accident. Basically what happened was a car (speeding needless to say) lost control and hit my dads lorry. My dad swerved on instinct and the trailer flipped over and promptly burst, spreading about 20 tonnes of packaged chicken all over the motorway. Fortunately, everyone involved escaped with minor injuries. It took the police (and a few helpers :wink: ) about 6 hours to pick all the food up, and for some reason, some went missing :o