Sherborne Mercury 1792

Two miners smoking their pips in the fire engine house caused a spark to fall onto a barrel of gunpowder that had ben left there. This ignited and then exploded destroying the engine house the remains of which caught fire. The two men were killed and several injured.

[tweak]Thread title changed by Vanoord following a small rant on a similar topic... ::) [/tweak]

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I don't think this sort of incident was that infrequent!

A situation would have existed in many mines where someone was putting gunpowder into a shot hole, illuminated by candlelight - not acceptable under today's Health & Safety rules!

I've recently been through the rigmarole of applying for an explosives licence for storing marine distress flares and the process is utterly bonkers under the 2005 Act, which replaced the far more sane 1875 Act.

This time around , it took me about 3 hours to complete the necessary assessments, which included time to draw a complete floorplan of the building to show where there flares will be kept (in a metal box).

Presumably in the instance of the building catching fire and there is nobody on site who works there and thus knows where the flares are, someone can be dispatched to the County Council offices half an hour away, look up the floorplan and return, perhaps three hours later (allowing for a keyholder to be found and the right file eventually discovered etc. etc.).

Then, the fire brigade can go about putting out the fire, safe in the knowledge that they know where the flares are (or were). And for that matter, the adjacent petrol station will probably have made a fine sight as it exploded whilst the floorplan was being found :)

The thrust of the 2005 Act seems to be based on a concern about people storing fireworks - and in some cases I had to modify the forms to make it clear that I don't want to sell fireworks.

Contrast this to the much simpler 1875 Act, which was introduced in an age when mines and quarries would have had huge stocks of explosives - yet the licence form took 3 minutes to complete and assumed that the applicant wasn't a mindless idiot!

Health & Safety gone mad? I think so...

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Get this..... I'm in the railway business and had a very expensive high speed train stopped in a depot once. Before the train can leave it must have the correct safety equipment... To be exact its warning detonators were missing so being proactive I agreed to take a pack in the car..... "You can't do that" said the depot... It turned out in order to get the detonators to the train I had to be registered to carry Explosives under this act.... We had to employ a company at a cost of £200 to drive them inside a flimsy locked box in his van to the train. He undid the box handed them to the store man who left them on an open shelf in the stores, the fitter came and fetched and put them in the cab, where train drivers handle them as required, Non of these people had any form of explosive training except the van driver so I don't get a process that makes such a load of fuss over the transport yet any old dear can handle em.... The detonators in question were stolen by kids 2 hours later. :lol:

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Yup, that sounds about right...

Something similar exists for the transport of "hazardous waste" - we're allowed to carry as many new batteries as we wish in a vehicle, but if we wish to carry more than one 'scrap' battery, we need:
- a licence to store said batteries at our base
- a licence to be a carrier of hazardous waste
- an authorisation from whichever authority it is for that specific journey
- and the destination must also hold a licence to receive the batteries

Is it any wonder that things get dumped in lay-byes? ::)

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The transporting round of bang is not realy a licence thing as such. What's required is the holding of an RCA document from the HSE - it dosn't mean you have a licence, are a fit person etc. It just means you've written to them for the document!

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The guy that moved my Detonators had a knackered old whilte van with a home made metal box.... neither man van or box looked fit for purpose!!! 😉

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Ah yes!

Explosives may only be carried if they are in a secure container, ie a box. And what do we know about the effects of letting off explosives in confined spaces...? 😮

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I wonder what the rules would be for disposing of a lead acid battery powered detonator insulated with asbestos...... oooh and some PCB in it for good measure... the form would be amazing.... :angel:

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The guy that moved my Detonators had a knackered old whilte van with a home made metal box.... neither man van or box looked fit for purpose!!! 😉

Ah but he probably had a signed copy of the right bit od paper with him, which as we all know has special anti blast properties 😉

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Ah yes!

Explosives may only be carried if they are in a secure container, ie a box. And what do we know about the effects of letting off explosives in confined spaces...? 😮

On that subject (though, I admit, a little O/T) there used to be a fine pair of hexagonal gas holders (in Warwick I believe) that where encased in decorative brickwork since the (Victorian) custodians of H&S believed that the bricks would constrain energy should the gas catch fire! Fortunately they never did discover the aerodynamic qualities of the average Victorian brick.
The gas holders still exist but have since been converted to very fine hexagonal dwellings.

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In the late 1980's I worked for a construction company that among other things they laid a pipelines for the water board. Quite often would have to blast the rock.
One day I was called out to a broken down sherpa van with a burnt out clutch.
We towed the van into the depot garage with a Transit van with myself steering the sherpa. And then got on with the job in hand.
About an hour later the Irish foreman on the job the sherpa was allocated to came into the garage yelling 'o lord be jesus we've left the explosives in the van'.
There, under the passenger seat was gellignite in one box, and the detonators in another.
The foreman assured me they were quite safe.
Somehow I did not believe him though.

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Speaking of vans, a long time ago I once had a nice jaunt through southern England in a little balck Mini van, two of us in it, both armed.
In the back of this inconspicious little van was 14 SLR's and 6 GPMG's.
I was dragged aong for the ride as regulations stipulated there had to be two people. often thought that would have been a prize haul for somebody.

I sometimes think the Irish shouldn't be allowed near explosives.

In 1999, we were having a guided tour around Irish Industrial Explosives near Dublin, our guide went to great pains to explain to us how good the health and safety regulations were and how they would prevent a major blast, principipally by segregation of different components.

Anyway we were outside a gelignate mixing house, being explained to us why we had to put on rubber overshoes to avoid any grit entering the building that could cause a spark under foot, as we were there there was a massive trolley of stuff waiting to go to stores. The bulk of which was pre prepared anfo slurry sausages. Anywya someone questioned why this trolley was just lying around with a couple of tonnes of explosive (well blasting agent to be precise ANFO isn't technically an explosive) on it.

The man quickly explained there was no risk as there was nothing to set off Anfo, so we just asked the question what was in the other boxes on the trolley, the first box happened to contain primer cartridges,which if detonated have enough ower to set the ANFO off - not looking good.

But the primer is cap sensitive, it can oly be set off by a detonator - so whats in this box - Detonators! Oh lord jesus, this is getting worst - but don't worry they are NonEl and are not sensitive to electrical acivity in the same manner as electric detonators - so whats in the last box - you got it Electric Detonators! Then its time to get out of there very quick!

A friend of mine was chasing Chinese steam and ended up on a Workmans train to a hugecoal quarry on a Monday morning in the leading passenger coach. The train was 8 packed drab brown coaches with one bright yellow coach/van on the end which had no windows. This yellow coach was positioned between the passenger coaches and the locomotive which was a 2-8-2 SY Steam loco.
They got to the quarry station and asked what was the yellow coach behind the loco for? "Oh thats got the week aheads explosives in for blasting at the quarry"..... All those sparks ... Eeeeeeek! 😮

Edit .... I just re-watched his video of it and the coach was an old wooden one!!! Worse!! ::)

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