Half past four on Friday.

[Belmit]

I'm back! Road was completely clear, and I am stress free. Office > traffic jam. But not real jam.

Edit: And I'm enjoying a pumpkin beer from Sainsbury's. Bloody gorgeous it is!

[Kell_ee001]

Originally Posted by Will

Yeah but you're a slacker!

Jealous much?

[Feek]

Originally Posted by Desmo

A12 is closed due to a lorry full of gas canisters.....it's on fire

The can't get the thing open as it's got mahoosive padlocks on it or something.

Not quite!

The A12 was closed due to a van catching on fire which had a set of oxyacetylene cylinders in the back (one cylinder of oxygen and one of acetylene). Acetylene is a very dangerous gas once heated, even once it starts cooling down it can suddenly start the reheating process by itself and go into explode mode. The fire was at half past eight this morning.

They have to set up a 200m exclusion zone around any acetylene that's been heated and cool it as gently as possible. There's no chance of moving it as it's susceptible to mechanical shock as well. Cylinders which have exploded have been known to spread debris (shrapnel) up to 175 metres away!

So they water cooled it for 10 hours, the bomb squad sent a robot in which was able to gain access to the van and a 'wet' test was performed which showed it to be _reasonably_ safe. The A12 northbound was re-opened at around half past six this evening and the last I heard was that they were keeping it there with water cooling until around 08:00 tomorrow morning when it'll be cleared.

Nasty stuff.

I reached the beer shop at 19:55. It closes at 20:00.

Phew.

[Wellington]

close one then, enjoy your beer

[Lopez]

See when we tell people this sort of thing so they understand why their deliveries are late they just say

"Yeah well I still expect it to get here"

Bellends.

[Will]

Originally Posted by Lopez

See when we tell people this sort of thing so they understand why their deliveries are late they just say

"Yeah well I still expect it to get here"

Bellends.

We've been in that situation before - especially during the floods we had earlier this year.

[Mark]

I gather this affected the rail lines into Chelmsford as well. There was also apparently some talk of them calling in a marksman and shooting the cylinders (allegedly it's a tactic the americans use). That wasn't your doing, was it, Feek?

[Feek]

I heard that on the wireless and myself and the boss were talking about it on the way home. It's a bit extreme but I could see it working. Luckily it cooled enough for them to get one carriageway and the rail line open so they didn't go down that route.