How to mitigate the effects of stranded trains in future incidents

[jon0844]

If I remember correctly - and it's a very long time since I had anything to do with it - On Train PA announcements can be made via GSMR. So those equipped with the right equipment in signalling centres or the like could make announcements directly to the train, assuming there is still enough power for the GSMR and PA systems.

Yes they can. I've been on a train where a driver has left the cab to deal with something and the signaller has been able to request the driver returns to the cab.

Maintaining the GSM-R, PA system and some basic lighting is a must. If a train could be stranded for 5 hours or more in extreme cases, the battery should be able to cope with that, or even longer. It really wouldn't need to be a significantly large capacity battery in the grand scheme of things (I am not suggesting it would be used for traction). A 500Wh or 1kWh battery should be ample to power such systems for ages. Obviously this depends on the length of the train and how many lights you'd need, and a 9-12 car fixed formation train would have a bigger battery than a 4 car - with 8 or 12 cars made up of 3 trains each having their own battery (and so on).

 

[etr221]

In this order, access to toilets, access to water, and access to food are also urgent, especially the first of the three.

I would say that, after communications, light and (in winter) heat are the most important, followed by toilets.

 

[DDB]

I'm amazed such an important system as the radios have such a short battery life. It should be multiple hours as a minimum.

On here people are very quick to criticise passengers for self evacuating but one of the relatively recent enquiries concluded the conditions on the trains were and I quote, "Intolerable". The industry needs to sort this out the warnings have been given.

 

[zwk500]

Not if they're turned off.

Turned off does not equal made safe. The cables would need to be earthed first to prevent residual shocks and then also made sure they can't physically cause any problems.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The industry has got itself so inward looking on safety that it doesn't take a holistic view that in doing so it moves the risk elsewhere. We need to get back to skills we used to have to implement and manage degraded working.

 

[SynthD]

The industry has got itself so inward looking on safety that it doesn't take a holistic view that in doing so it moves the risk elsewhere. We need to get back to skills we used to have to implement and manage degraded working.

We didn’t have the skills to implement degraded working in the past. We had the impatience to implement dangerous working.

 

[The Puddock]

Providing resilient and reliable standby power on the trains is only half the battle. In my opinion we need to get much, much better at carrying out controlled evacuations as soon as they become necessary, so we don't leave paying passengers sitting in their own filth in the dark for interminable hours.

If Andrew Haines asked me what I thought NR should do to sort this mess out (apart from reversing the swingeing cuts to maintenance budgets and staff numbers) I would suggest massively increasing the budget for Ops response. Hugely increase the number of EIUs (Emergency Intervention Units), MIOs (Mobile Incident Officers) and MOMs (Mobile Operations Managers) in all NR Regions. Look at moving to a London Underground style model of having a team of MOMs working and travelling together as a crew of 5 or 6 in the busiest areas, so that a single MOM isn't left on their own to deal with trying to evacuate hundreds of people. Don't just give them a little Transit Connect van to share but invest in a fleet of strategically located heavy duty response vehicles with suitable well designed equipment in sufficient quantities to manage and evacuate stranded trains - portable lighting, ladders/stairs/ramps, bottled water, handheld GSM-R mobiles, glow sticks, foil blankets, etc etc... I would also improve training for Ops response staff as currently there is no formal training provided whatsoever* for evacuating trains. For this I'd look to the marine and aviation industries to seek their expertise on training crisis management and crowd control. Evacuating a full and standing commuter train isn't too dissimilar from evacuating a cruise ship and brings many of the same challenges; the difference is that the crew of the cruise ship will have completed mandatory ongoing practical training to enable them to do this safely in a risky environment.

I'd also spend millions on clearing up the trackside environment, building safe cess walkways and maintaining them to be free of trip hazards and vegetation. You used to be able to cycle down the cess in many places as crazy as that may seem in 2023.


*I mean in Network Rail Operations - I don't know about the TOCs. Though a program of joint NR Ops/TOC traincrew evacuation training should be a priority

 

[Bikeman78]

Bit of a problem on a Crossrail train!

Exactly. Which is why people started to break out of them. The same thing will happen next time unless the railway can find a way to get people off within 60 minutes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Dec 2023 ==

I would say that, after communications, light and (in winter) heat are the most important, followed by toilets.

What about aircon in Summer? Let's imagine it's 30 degrees. How long would a sealed carriage take to become unbearable?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

What about aircon in Summer? Let's imagine it's 30 degrees. How long would a sealed carriage take to become unbearable?

Given a 455 with opening hoppers are stifling on a hot day a sealed train is going to get a lot more uncomfortable if its crush loaded in direct sunlight and you would have thought some research would have been done on timing to inform safety cases for introducing new trains.

 

[HSTEd]

Providing resilient and reliable standby power on the trains is only half the battle. In my opinion we need to get much, much better at carrying out controlled evacuations as soon as they become necessary, so we don't leave paying passengers sitting in their own filth in the dark for interminable hours.

If Andrew Haines asked me what I thought NR should do to sort this mess out (apart from reversing the swingeing cuts to maintenance budgets and staff numbers) I would suggest massively increasing the budget for Ops response. Hugely increase the number of EIUs (Emergency Intervention Units), MIOs (Mobile Incident Officers) and MOMs (Mobile Operations Managers) in all NR Regions. Look at moving to a London Underground style model of having a team of MOMs working and travelling together as a crew of 5 or 6 in the busiest areas, so that a single MOM isn't left on their own to deal with trying to evacuate hundreds of people. Don't just give them a little Transit Connect van to share but invest in a fleet of strategically located heavy duty response vehicles with suitable well designed equipment in sufficient quantities to manage and evacuate stranded trains - portable lighting, ladders/stairs/ramps, bottled water, handheld GSM-R mobiles, glow sticks, foil blankets, etc etc... I would also improve training for Ops response staff as currently there is no formal training provided whatsoever for evacuating trains. For this I'd look to the marine and aviation industries to seek their expertise on training crisis management and crowd control. Evacuating a full and standing commuter train isn't too dissimilar from evacuating a cruise ship and brings many of the same challenges; the difference is that the crew of the cruise ship will have completed mandatory ongoing practical training to enable them to do this safely in a risky environment.

I'd also spend millions on clearing up the trackside environment, building safe cess walkways and maintaining them to be free of trip hazards and vegetation. You used to be able to cycle down the cess in many places as crazy as that may seem in 2023.

All that is going to require a rather large and ongoing subsidy given that you want to hire literal thousands or even tens of thousands of additional staff, much less billions in capital expenditure to get evacuation routes of the type you describe.

How do you propose to convince the taxpayer and the government that all this is worth paying for?

 

[The Puddock]

All that is going to require a rather large and ongoing subsidy given that you want to hire literal thousands or even tens of thousands of additional staff, much less billions in capital expenditure to get evacuation routes of the type you describe.

How do you propose to convince the taxpayer and the government that all this is worth paying for?

I'm not suggesting an increase of anything like that, literally or figuratively. At the moment there are around 800 MOMs and around 90 MIOs - doubling those numbers wouldn't break the bank. Leasing and equipping decent, workable vehicles is peanuts in the grand sum of an ORR Control period settlement. If we want to get better at responding to the type of mass stranding events that have happened in the last week then that's just the cost of running a resilient, safe railway today.

Network Rail currently runs the Operations side of the business on a shoestring, it really does. But ultimately it doesn't matter what I think or wish for on here because none of it is going to happen. There is no appetite in the company to increase Ops spending and there never will be. Network Rail is an engineering company first and foremost; Ops is the ginger stepchild.

 

[jon0844]

What about aircon in Summer? Let's imagine it's 30 degrees. How long would a sealed carriage take to become unbearable?

Do Elizabeth Line trains have curtains that can be put up on open doors to allow ventilation? Of course on a crush loaded train, it might be difficult to deploy them.

 

[Falcon1200]

Evacuating a full and standing commuter train isn't too dissimilar from evacuating a cruise ship and brings many of the same challenges; the difference is that the crew of the cruise ship will have completed mandatory ongoing practical training to enable them to do this safely in a risky environment.

How did that work out for the Costa Concordia?.....

At the moment there are around 800 MOMs and around 90 MIOs - doubling those numbers wouldn't break the bank. Leasing and equipping decent, workable vehicles is peanuts in the grand sum of an ORR Control period settlement.

Increasing staff numbers and equipment to that extent would certainly cost a lot more than what I would class as 'peanuts'!

Network Rail currently runs the Operations side of the business on a shoestring, it really does.

But to some extent I do agree with you there, reducing operations costs in what I believed was an unacceptable manner was one of the reasons I retired from NR in 2016; Although it should be noted that the one particular cost reduction affecting my role has since been reversed!

The two main areas where I see room for improvement are communications to passengers, both positive (ie telling them, as far as is known, what is happening) and negative (ie the risks of self-detraining and the extra delay this causes), and staff training, preparing staff for the consequences of train-stranding and helping them to deal with the results.