Scene from "The Day Of The Triffids" (1962): What would happen in reality?

[tom73]

Not sure there to put this. Please move if there is a more appropriate category.
The film is based on the idea of everyone in England having woken up totally blind due to watching a meteor shower the previous evening.
During the first 15 minutes, a steam locomotive plus carriages is seen hurtling into a terminal station (London Marylebone?) at full speed due to the crew being blind. The carriages are shown as being undamaged, passengers appear OK although a little woozy and there is no sign of damage to the station itself.
Can anyone suggest the real effect of a full length train filled with passengers hitting the buffers at around 60mph?

 

[pdeaves]

Can anyone suggest the real effect of a full length train filled with passengers hitting the buffers at around 60mph?

Inquiry after inquiry after report after report, for starters!

 

[Mag_seven]

Can anyone suggest the real effect of a full length train filled with passengers hitting the buffers at around 60mph?

Well what do you think?

 

[Taunton]

Norton Fitzwarren (Taunton) accident in 1940, express hit the buffers at the end of the Down Relief at about 35mph. Loco and train completely wrecked.

Buttevant accident in Ireland 1980, express diverted into short siding at 60mph. You can see the results here
http://www.buttevant.ie/Buttevant-Rail-Disaster-(1980).html

 

[GusB]

I remember reading the report into the 1991 Cannon Street collision, which was fairly low-speed. There were 2 fatalities, and 542 others injured with 277 being treated in hospital.

I shudder to think of the carnage that would result of a train hitting the buffers at 60mph.

Report here: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/HSE_Cannon1991.pdf

 

[greyman42]

Regarding the Moorgate underground disaster when a train crashed into the end wall without applying the brakes, 43 died and 74 suffered significant injuries.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Have you ever seen the film ‘Silver Streak’?

 

[DarloRich]

Can anyone suggest the real effect of a full length train filled with passengers hitting the buffers at around 60mph?

Are you honestly asking that? What do you think would happen? I am sure it would all be perfectly fine.

 

[6Gman]

Not sure there to put this. Please move if there is a more appropriate category.
The film is based on the idea of everyone in England having woken up totally blind due to watching a meteor shower the previous evening.
During the first 15 minutes, a steam locomotive plus carriages is seen hurtling into a terminal station (London Marylebone?) at full speed due to the crew being blind. The carriages are shown as being undamaged, passengers appear OK although a little woozy and there is no sign of damage to the station itself.
Can anyone suggest the real effect of a full length train filled with passengers hitting the buffers at around 60mph?

1. The carriages of that era would be a hell of a mess after such an incident with many casualties.

BUT

2. When were the crew supposed to have been blinded? Presumably they would have responded to being blinded by bringing the train to a rapid halt ... ?

 

[birchesgreen]

Moorgate disaster killed 43 people and that was at about 40mp/h?

 

[142Pilot]

The 142 that nearly ended up in St George's hall at lime Street - was less than 60mph.

 

[ComUtoR]

DSD/Deadmans handle would stop the train... maybe.

 

[Randomer]

As for the other answers above pretty much carnage guaranteed, especially with the possibility of it still being light framed coaching stock. Although the likelihood of a train making it to a terminus at speed with no signalling (all now being also blind) and not having a collision, derailing on points set against or in the best possible case derailing on a set of catch points seems pretty low especially at a busy terminus station. Also a fairly big suspension of disbelief that the driver or fireman wouldn't have just pulled the power when they lost vision.

A steam loco as mentioned by the OP didn't have a DSD as far as I know (although I am interested about what the various GWR MU sets did with a lone driver in the driving carriage and a fireman in the loco in the rear, guessing if the driver was incapacitated bad luck unless the fireman happened to notice a lack of control inputs).

 

[ComUtoR]

When were dead mans handles introduced ?

 

[6Gman]

I think we can assume that the programme/film was using lashings of "suspended disbelief" (to put it mildly).

A train is running towards London when a meteor shower blinds ... everybody.

Wouldn't the following conversation have taken place (but with rather more earthy language)?

Driver: "I say James. What was that huge flash of light? Crikey, I can't see!"
Fireman: "I'm the same Algernon, I think it's blinded me."
D: "I can't see a thing. I'll shut the regulator and put the brake on so we can stop in a rapid but safe manner."
F: "Very wise my good fellow. We can then enquire as to what has happened."

[In practice I suspect at least 50% of the words used word have started with the letter F]

Why on earth would they just have pressed on at high speed?

 

[6Gman]

When were dead mans handles introduced ?

On dieselisation I believe. Were the very early diesels (the LMS pair and the SR trio) so fitted?

As far as I know steam locos were never so fitted (ATC/AWS is something different).

 

[3141]

I think we can assume that the programme/film was using lashings of "suspended disbelief" (to put it mildly).

Why on earth would they just have pressed on at high speed?

You've answered the question. It's in the screenplay, to produce an exciting incident, and also to get one of the main characters into the story. Marylebone wasn't busy in those days, but you might have thought the crew would have worked out where they were when they entered the tunnels south of Finchley Road - if you were looking at it from a railway perspective.

There's another scene in that film involving two buses, which I came across being filmed in Lincoln's Inn Fields one lunchtime.

 

[Randomer]

Or for that matter a steam loco in a GWR ATP area (original version rather than modern incarnation) would have been fine as well.

I know DSD was widely introduced with the drive to remove the second man from cabs by BR (which coincided with a lot of diesel stock being introduced). However, most of the first generation diesels were setup to be ran as two man units with proper second man's seats so I do wonder if they were fitted with it or was it a retrofit later on?

I would be interested to know whether the Southern Railway 1920's electrification units were originally fitted with it?

(also getting wildly off topic perhaps a kind moderator could move posts to a History and Nostalgia thread?)

 

[Merthyr Imp]

The incident doesn't feature in the original novel. The narrator mentions a few incidents of crashed road vehicles but although I haven't read the book for some years I don't think there's any mention of how the blindness may have affected train services.

 

[Dr Hoo]

There is a similar idea in the Arthur Conan Doyle story (not Sherlock Holmes but Professor Challenger ISTR) called The Poison Belt or similar. That is based on the idea of the world’s population being progressively asphyxiated. There are some references to steam hauled trains running out of control and crashing although the main issue was from unattended fires spreading.

 

[ComUtoR]

On dieselisation I believe. Were the very early diesels (the LMS pair and the SR trio) so fitted?

Some very quick research is telling me that it harks back to 1880 ! I remember seeing one when I was on Tangmere so maybe that's a retrofit.

 

[6Gman]

There is a similar idea in the Arthur Conan Doyle story (not Sherlock Holmes but Professor Challenger ISTR) called The Poison Belt or similar. That is based on the idea of the world’s population being progressively asphyxiated. There are some references to steam hauled trains running out of control and crashing although the main issue was from unattended fires spreading.

Actually asphyxiation (being a gradual process) is more plausible than sudden blindness, which the traincrew would notice!

 

[6Gman]

Some very quick research is telling me that it harks back to 1880 ! I remember seeing one when I was on Tangmere so maybe that's a retrofit.

I know the NER used them on electric units pre-1923, but how would it work on a steam loco?

 

[Cowley]

I think we can assume that the programme/film was using lashings of "suspended disbelief" (to put it mildly).

A train is running towards London when a meteor shower blinds ... everybody.

Wouldn't the following conversation have taken place (but with rather more earthy language)?

Driver: "I say James. What was that huge flash of light? Crikey, I can't see!"
Fireman: "I'm the same Algernon, I think it's blinded me."
D: "I can't see a thing. I'll shut the regulator and put the brake on so we can stop in a rapid but safe manner."
F: "Very wise my good fellow. We can then enquire as to what has happened."

[In practice I suspect at least 50% of the words used word have started with the letter F]

Why on earth would they just have pressed on at high speed?

Excellent.
“I say old boy. Probably best to stop and seek out a local eye infirmary. No point trying to get to our destination in this condition what?”
Because that’s how they dealt with things back then.
Even if they had a train load of incendiary devices behind them...

 

[Taunton]

A steam loco as mentioned by the OP didn't have a DSD as far as I know (although I am interested about what the various GWR MU sets did with a lone driver in the driving carriage and a fireman in the loco in the rear, guessing if the driver was incapacitated bad luck unless the fireman happened to notice a lack of control inputs).

On the GW (and others) such local trains, generally referred to as "auto trains", the fireman at the back was virtually a second driver, and maintained a good lookout forward for much of the time. There was an electric bell communication system between them. The auto controls only allowed the opening/closing of the regulator. The fireman had to adjust the cut-off as they saw fit. The driver could apply the vacuum brakes with a normal brake valve, but operating the ejector to release them again was controlled only back on the footplate. This was in addition to normal fireman's duties, but a small loco pushing one coach didn't need much, and it was often sufficient to attend to the fire only at the various frequent station stops. It was a useful stepping stone for a Passed Fireman.

Bell codes were 1 to start, 2 to stop (so the opposite of convention on buses) and 3 to release the brakes. Various unofficial codes would be agreed as well. Lots of photos of the controls etc here

http://citytransport.info/Steam-MU.htm

 

[Pigeon]

Actually asphyxiation (being a gradual process) is more plausible than sudden blindness, which the traincrew would notice!

Indeed, runaways due to steam engine crews passing out from fumes in tunnels have happened on several occasions. There was quite a spectacular one on the S&D, for instance. And there were probably plenty more incidents that never made the record because the crew woke up again in time to sort it.

Merthyr Imp is correct that nothing of the kind happens in the original book. Stupid things happening in films that didn't happen in the book are of course very common, and so are stupid things happening in films anywhere that railways come into it. Makes no sense, really. Imagine if the chase sequence in The Italian Job had had odd shots in the middle with Rolls Royces instead of Mini Coopers on the grounds that they've both got four wheels so nobody's going to notice.

Marylebone was quite a popular filming location, being something of a backwater. You get things like people getting on a three-carriage express hauled by an LMS tanky at some station on the single-track section of the ECML, and then getting off a DMU at a station full of identical DMUs and nothing else...

Silver Streak - laugh - yeah, I remember that. But it has to be said that sorry-looking photos of a locomotive that's gone through the buffers and through the wall and come to rest arse up nose down in the street outside exist for many different terminal stations in different countries.

 

[edwin_m]

Trains hitting a terminus at speed are fortunately very rare, the only relatively recent one I can think of being Gare de Lyon in 1988 wiht 56 killed - although that actually hit a train waiting to leave. Casualties would have been more with older stock and if the staff hadn't done all they could to get passengers to safety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_de_Lyon_rail_accident

Soon after the train passed Maisons-Alfort, it reached a four-degree grade that led to Gare de Lyon. When Saulin passed a yellow signal instructing him to slow the train in preparation for being switched to an empty platform, Saulin discovered his brakes barely worked. As the train picked up speed from its descent, Saulin desperately radioed an emergency warning, but failed to identify himself to the controller. He pressed the general alarm button on his radio and left his cab to evacuate the passengers to the rear of the train.

Train 153944 crashed into a delayed outbound train as its passengers were evacuating, heeding warnings made by the delayed train's driver André Tanguy, who bravely remained in his cab repeating his warning over the intercom until he was killed in the collision.

The cause was an error when re-setting the brakes after a passenger operated the emergency stop earlier in the journey.

 

[SteveP29]

Have you ever seen the film ‘Silver Streak’?

One of my all time favourites

 

[B&I]

Have you ever seen the film ‘Silver Streak’?

DISCLAIMER: this film is not a documentary, although the presence of Patrick McGoohan in the cast may have fooled people into thinking it would br an exercise in earthy realism

 

[B&I]

I think we can assume that the programme/film was using lashings of "suspended disbelief" (to put it mildly).

A train is running towards London when a meteor shower blinds ... everybody.

Wouldn't the following conversation have taken place (but with rather more earthy language)?

Driver: "I say James. What was that huge flash of light? Crikey, I can't see!"
Fireman: "I'm the same Algernon, I think it's blinded me."
D: "I can't see a thing. I'll shut the regulator and put the brake on so we can stop in a rapid but safe manner."
F: "Very wise my good fellow. We can then enquire as to what has happened."

[In practice I suspect at least 50% of the words used word have started with the letter F]

Why on earth would they just have pressed on at high speed?

Love the Rank Charm School BR staff dialogue