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Passengers self-detrain from LO train 15 July 2019

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gazzaa2

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No different to making a 10-minute journey which involves going from one exit to another on a motorway and then coming up against a blockage. Things going wrong is a fact of life, it does no harm at all to carry a bottle of water with them. Not expecting people to carry half the contents of a swimming pool, but a 2 litre bottle is not a major burden on hot days.

At least on a gridlocked motorway you're not completely trapped. You can open the car door for a bit and stretch your legs - or at least the window. You can heat or cool your car. It's not as claustrophobic.

Leaving people trapped for hours on a train without access to toilets or drinking waters is not acceptable, whether it's a hot day or not.
 
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Islineclear3_1

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How about TOCs doing a publicity drive (e.g. posters, announcements) outlining the dangers and inconveniences of self-detraining along with some kind of reassurance to passengers that there really are procedures in place should a train become stranded?

How can the public be better educated?

Be interesting reading when the RAIB report is published...
 

sheff1

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How about TOCs doing a publicity drive (e.g. posters, announcements) outlining the dangers and inconveniences of self-detraining along with some kind of reassurance to passengers that there really are procedures in place should a train become stranded?

As has been said before, many people do not believe what they are being told by TOCs and often with justification. I posted the other week about people being assured a train would be held for them and staff would be on hand to assist. Neither happened - why would anyone affected then, or by other similar instances of false information, believe such a TOC telling them they have procedures in place which would deal with matters effectively ?
 

Mojo

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Be interesting reading when the RAIB report is published...
They won't be publishing a full report for this incident. The article linked to in the opening post says they're only going to do a safety digest.
 

Mathew S

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How about TOCs doing a publicity drive (e.g. posters, announcements) outlining the dangers and inconveniences of self-detraining along with some kind of reassurance to passengers that there really are procedures in place should a train become stranded?

How can the public be better educated?

Be interesting reading when the RAIB report is published...
TOCs need to concentrate on getting basic communications right first. As others have said, when train companies can't even provide accurate information about their own services, or about replacement buses, people aren't going to believe a word the operators have to say.
 

broadgage

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Just like they would if stuck for hours on a motorway... the difference there being there’s no one to blame for people not bothering to bring their own drinking water.

People stuck for hours on the motorway are allowed to get out and walk around.
If urgently needing to relieve themselves, it is possible to so do on the hard shoulder or verge. Far from ideal I know but still a vast improvement over having to wet or soil themselves in public as at Lewisham.
All cars have opening windows, most new trains don't.
Almost all cars have heating, which still works if stuck in traffic. No heating on trains stuck at Lewisham or in the New Forest.
An increasing proportion of cars have air conditioning, most stranded trains don't.
 

O L Leigh

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Incidents are often fluid in nature and change as time goes by, so sometimes it’s hard to say anything at all without later being proven wrong. I know how frustrating it can be for the passengers, but believe me it’s just as bad for us staff because ultimately it’s us that are made to look like complete berks.

For example:

I got stuck out at the wrong end of a route after a colleague ran over a fallen tree. For a long time it was just a case of waiting until the train had been freed from its deadly embrace and the tree cleared off the line. Although my booked back-working was obviously cancelled I was told I would form the next departure after this, but obviously this slipped further and further back as the job progressed until ultimately I was to form the last service back. All the while I was communicating with the passengers, making myself available and reassuring them that yes we were definitely going to leave, no I don’t think it will be on time, but yes we’re definitely going to be on our way. Shortly before departure time came around I got one last call from control telling me that Nitwit Rail had, in the process of removing it, discovered that the fallen tree had struck and damaged a bridge and that the line would not be reopening. Therefore, the train was cancelled and the passengers should take an alternative route.

How did I feel at the end of this? Frankly, a bit daft. I wished I’d directed them all to take the alternative route a lot sooner, but what was I to do? Control had assured me that I would be coming back at some point or other, and so I told the passengers.

I can hear Daily Mail’s being thrown down in disgust even from this distance, but was this really “misinformation”? Did I mislead the passengers? I don’t believe so. I told them precisely what was going on just as control had told me, but the parameters of the incident changed and changed again as time went on and the incident was dealt with. I can’t even blame Nitwit Rail for failing to tell us the severity of the tree-fall because they did not become aware of the damage to the bridge until after enough of the tree was removed to reveal it.

I offer this tale for the purposes of illustration. We are not the masters of our own destiny and just sometimes an incident will not progress along predictable lines and, as a consequence, the information you are given may not necessarily be as accurate as we would like. It would be lovely to be told by control that an assisting train will be on-scene within 30 minutes and for that to be precisely what transpires, but sometimes this doesn’t happen. It doesn’t mean that the information you were given at the outset was wrong, but rather that it has been overtaken by events. It’s one of the reasons why I personally will never be drawn on how long something may or may not take.
 

DelW

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If these incidents are really increasing in frequency (rather than just being more widely reported), should there be some consideration of introducing emergency ventilation systems on modern fully-sealed trains?

In the early days of air-conditioned stock, there were still opening drop-lights in the doors, while most suburban trains (more likely to be packed to the doors) still had opening windows throughout. Conditions might get unpleasant, but some ventilation was still available. In more recently introduced trains, if the air-con fails, there may be no ventilation at all. A human body at rest produces around 0.10 - 0.12kW of heat, so passengers on a train with 500-600 people on board will produce about 60kW, the equivalent of 20 electric heaters turned on full. Add that to solar gain from sun on the windows, and summer temperatures outside, and conditions could quickly become unbearable. If that then causes people to open the doors, just to be able to breathe more easily, others may then be tempted to climb out.

As to how emergency ventilation could be provided, it would need to be under the control of train crew not passengers, otherwise it will get used even when the air-con is working and so make it less effective. Would battery back-up for the air-con be feasible? I suspect it wouldn't last long enough to do much good. Some form of powered roof vent set up to open on power failure (needs battery back-up again)? I think the rolling-stock manufacturers ought at least to be considering what can be done to mitigate passengers' discomfort when their trains fail, even it if would be difficult to retrofit to current stock.
 

Chris M

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In terms of emergency ventilation, you probably want something simple and mechanical. For example windows that can open but are normally locked shut with a T key. This wouldn't work on services that are too crowded for the driver/guard to walk through, but would otherwise be good.

Air conditioning is probably the single most power hungry thing on a train not involved in making it move, so running it from the battery would only work for a short time.
 

boxy321

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Leaving people trapped for hours, some of them passing out and others having panic attacks is also "daft" so what's the solution? In many cases, we're not talking about slight inconvience. People passing out due to lack of air con or ventilation is a serious H&S failure and there needs to be a solution.

How about this:

Instead of isolation, reduce the 3rd rail to 48V. This is classified as safe to touch throughout industry.

A 5-car 378 delivers 2.4MW in total according to Wiki, which amounts to 3200A of current pulled during full power operation. That same amount of current could provide 150kW of juice at 48V (I'm aware of significant voltage drops at dc so less in reality). This would operate modified air-conditioning and lights using an inverter on surrounding trains and prevent load shedding and all the rest. It could possibly also allow a train to crawl along under the right circumstances to a platform.
 

broadgage

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In terms of emergency ventilation, you probably want something simple and mechanical. For example windows that can open but are normally locked shut with a T key. This wouldn't work on services that are too crowded for the driver/guard to walk through, but would otherwise be good.

Air conditioning is probably the single most power hungry thing on a train not involved in making it move, so running it from the battery would only work for a short time.

I have previously suggested that air conditioned trains should be equipped with openable windows. To prevent misuse these windows should be electrically locked shut normally. When the air conditioning is not available, train crew can remotely unlock these windows, no need to walk through an overcrowded train tediously unlocking each window with a T key.
Alternatively, unlocking could be automated when the internal temperature reaches say 28 degrees AND the air conditioning is defective.
Magnetic locks are not expensive, are widely available in various voltages, and use little power.
 

boxy321

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It was exacerbated, but it wasn't handled superbly in the first instance either.

"contingency plans to control the risk of unmanaged passenger detrainment were not established and implemented in a timely fashion"
"key decisions were not made to define and implement plans to manage the circumstances. Other factors included informal communication using inappropriate channels, poor presentation of key operational information and ill- defined incident management processes."

If the conclusion is that the procedures are all perfect, and are being consistently correctly implemented, and the only problem is unruly passengers then nothing will change and these things will keep happening. Unless, maybe, you start keeping a few alligators in the cess...
Emergency freezing in carbonite of unruly passengers was considered a long, long time ago.
 

broadgage

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How about this:

Instead of isolation, reduce the 3rd rail to 48V. This is classified as safe to touch throughout industry.

A 5-car 378 delivers 2.4MW in total according to Wiki, which amounts to 3200A of current pulled during full power operation. That same amount of current could provide 150kW of juice at 48V (I'm aware of significant voltage drops at dc so less in reality). This would operate modified air-conditioning and lights using an inverter on surrounding trains and prevent load shedding and all the rest. It could possibly also allow a train to crawl along under the right circumstances to a platform.

I do not think that this would work.
When the conductor rail is heavily loaded significant voltage drop between substation and train occurs, up to 100 volts in many cases.
If during an emergency the supply voltage was reduced to 48 volts, then attempting to draw normal full load current at this lower voltage would result in zero volts at the load, the entire 48 volts having been lost in voltage drop.
Also 48 volts at heavy currents is rather dangerous, not much risk of dangerous shock, but considerable risk of fire and burns if short circuited.

The answer IMHO is to equip all new electric trains with either a battery pack or a small diesel engine able to run the air conditioning or to move the train a modest distance at much reduced speed.
Whilst I don't think much of the IETs, they do have the merit that the nominally electric sets are equipped with a single diesel engine for just such circumstances.
The battery in a modern electric car holds about 40Kwh, one such battery per coach would power the air conditioning for several hours, or move the train dozens of miles at much reduced speed.
 

boxy321

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I do not think that this would work.
When the conductor rail is heavily loaded significant voltage drop between substation and train occurs, up to 100 volts in many cases.
If during an emergency the supply voltage was reduced to 48 volts, then attempting to draw normal full load current at this lower voltage would result in zero volts at the load, the entire 48 volts having been lost in voltage drop.
Also 48 volts at heavy currents is rather dangerous, not much risk of dangerous shock, but considerable risk of fire and burns if short circuited.

The answer IMHO is to equip all new electric trains with either a battery pack or a small diesel engine able to run the air conditioning or to move the train a modest distance at much reduced speed.
Whilst I don't think much of the IETs, they do have the merit that the nominally electric sets are equipped with a single diesel engine for just such circumstances.
The battery in a modern electric car holds about 40Kwh, one such battery per coach would power the air conditioning for several hours, or move the train dozens of miles at much reduced speed.

Much like an APU on aircraft then.

BTW, I'm not on about full line power and running trains as normal at low voltage. There would be some sort of load shedding as the rail voltage drops similar to with the batteries on board. Think of the 48V supply as a battery charging/top-up source in that case. Surely many kW can still be pulled in this case?

Regarding shorts due to people carrying brollies and such over the 'semi' live rail - this is no different than at 750V. It simply means people get very warm very quickly instead of a full belt at line dc. A compromise to keep the train cool and bogs working - not an announcement that the rails are now safe to cross!
 

O L Leigh

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I forget the precise load-shedding schedule for Electrostars, but there is already emergency ventilation built-in. Obviously A/C is a high-draw system and cannot be run on the auxiliary batteries alone, so if you lose traction power you lose A/C also. However, the ventilation fans continue to run for a period (although I don’t recall how long this is for).
 

duffield

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All trains with no toilets, or with toilets that fail with no power should be provided with one or more emergency 'bucket' type toilet stored along with any other emergency gear carried. Embarrassing and unpleasant to use but better than passengers soiling themselves - or dangerously detraining to avoid this.

And yes, this would not help in *some* cases (train too crammed to get to emergency bucket etc.) but it should be a relatively cheap measure which could avoid *some* detrainments. And as I've said before, all *new* retention toilets to be specified with an emergency track dump and manual operation mode to go along.

None of this sounds wildly expensive or impractical to me but I'm not an expert and may be missing something important.
 

mmh

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And yes, this would not help in *some* cases (train too crammed to get to emergency bucket etc.) but it should be a relatively cheap measure which could avoid *some* detrainments. And as I've said before, all *new* retention toilets to be specified with an emergency track dump and manual operation mode to go along.

I can't see this working. Dumping effluent on the track is either acceptable or not, surely?

It won't help when a toilet is out of order because the water supply is empty. Without wanting to go into graphic detail about what happens when a toilet can't flush... I'm sure you can imagine what happens.
 

O L Leigh

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Oh my!! No thanks. I mean, where would you put the bucket and what do you propose to do with the contents?

It would be better to have an old-style WC toilet. I understand that the airline type uses less water which means less weight, smaller water and CET tanks and less effluent to be dealt with at the end of the day, but a WC is simple, gravity-fed and needs no electrical supply or compressed air.

But I don’t believe that it’s down to toilets or cooling that tips someone over into bailing out of a failed train. Some people simply don’t have the patience to wait it out and would rather be away on their toes.
 

duffield

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I can't see this working. Dumping effluent on the track is either acceptable or not, surely?

It won't help when a toilet is out of order because the water supply is empty. Without wanting to go into graphic detail about what happens when a toilet can't flush... I'm sure you can imagine what happens.

I don't see why it's unacceptable in an emergency. And *mostly* the issue would be people wanting to pee, which would need no water. I can imagine people peeing in a semi-public bucket toilet but virtually no-one would attempt anything more.
 

duffield

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Oh my!! No thanks. I mean, where would you put the bucket and what do you propose to do with the contents?

Normally stored with other emergency equipment (which could be stored in it as it would be sterile at that point). Bought out, put in a corner, used while people turn away, lid put on. Contents emptied when train finally reaches station.

Think of *very* basic camping type equipment.
 

duffield

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...and the ladies...?

It's *not* impossible to sit on and pee in a bucket type toilet without exposing yourself if clothing etc. is arranged carefully.

And again, to *all* those who are saying this is impractical/impossible/ridiculous:

So you think the alternatives - which are basically people wetting themselves in their clothes, peeing on the floor in the corner or detraining dangerously is better?
 

a_c_skinner

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If (as seems the norm nowadays) evacuation takes hours then an emergency bog (deluxe bucket, chuck it out of the door - not the side of the live rail) and a good number of opening windows seem not wholly unreasonable. This would soil the cess but the alternative is a soiled train set which is much harder to clean and cleaning needed more urgently and more offensive to the luckless passengers. Cess I discover is derived from an archaic dialect word for bog. In the other sense.
 

mmh

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...and the ladies...?

Well quite. What would actually happen on a toiletless train stranded for hours would be gents urinating in the carriage connections (where trains have them)

I'm bemused by the idea that "virtually no-one" would need to defecate. If only the body was so controllable.
 

O L Leigh

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If I went down to the emergency equipment cupboard, brought out a plastic bucket with a lid on it and placed it in a secluded door vestibule, I would be laughed straight back into my cab. Do you really think that anyone is going to be happy to use it? It’s only purpose would be to deter people from using it.
 

Islineclear3_1

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You cannot be serious !!???

I can't believe this thread has sunk to the deepest depths and the bowels... :(

Well, "the railway" advises passengers to carry bottles of water in hot weather so, just advise people to carry disposable nappies or their own buckets in case they need to do their business in the event of a stranded train... <(<(

Whatever next....!!??
 

duffield

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Well quite. What would actually happen on a toiletless train stranded for hours would be gents urinating in the carriage connections (where trains have them)

I'm bemused by the idea that "virtually no-one" would need to defecate. If only the body was so controllable.

The need to urinate for most people (especially if they are trying to keep hydrated) is *much* more frequent than the need to defecate. Typical defecation rate is once per day, many people go first thing in the morning and will be fine until the next day. Also, most people (apart from those with certain medical conditions) can wait *much* longer to defecate than urinate.

I feel like it's one of those discussions where I'm being constantly told 'because your solution is not effective in all cases for all people it should not be considered'.

I'll try again, wording it in a different way and being more specific: Why is a relatively simple, low cost, emergency urination facility a *bad* thing? I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall.
 

Islineclear3_1

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I'll try again, wording it in a different way and being more specific: Why is a relatively simple, low cost, emergency urination facility a *bad* thing? I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall.

You are

We're meant to be living in a first-world civilized society. You really can't be serious about sitting on and peeing in a bucket-type toilet!? Great, lets have it in the rear cab so that people can form an orderly queue and relieve themselves with some quasi-privacy... How does a person wearing trousers "arrange his/her clothes carefully" in order to do the business?

Totally ridiculous and unacceptable in our civilized society where we should be setting example.
 

swj99

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How much do these trains cost to purchase ? And how much extra would it cost if they were built with the kind of toilets that work regardless of electric power ? Just trying to think in relative terms about this.

Where I live, we have electricity, but not gas. This means if there's a power cut, the only way to make a hot drink is by lighting one of those disposable barbeques they sell in supermarkets. Alternatively, I can cut the bottom off 2 fizzy drink cans, make some drawing pin holes in one of them, fit them together and pour in some meths, and I have a simple but effective alcohol stove, which will easily burn for long enough to boil a decent pan of water / soup, whatever.

The point I'm trying to make is that if I can achieve that with a couple of items from the recycling bin, for almost no cost, then surely train manufacturers can, if they so desire, provide toilets in a train which even work in the absense of electric.
 
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