Train fire between Lee and Mottingham.

[ushawk]

This is just going round in circles and going absolutely nowhere. Passengers should follow what train crew say, or wait for assistance from rail staff and/or emergency services. Just walking along a railway line without any assistance from rail staff/emergency services will just require more staff to go along the line to see if they are fine.

I cant believe how people can defend how these people acted. By all means leave the train, but move AWAY from the fire (IE remain where the passengers on the bridge were, as this was a good distance away - and wait for assistance), NOT walk along a line PAST THE FIRE ITSELF, without any assistance from staff and ignoring the single staff member who told passengers to just move down the train away from the fire. Some passengers may not of heard the driver, but it doesnt mean you "follow the flock" and walk up the line.

Pathetic these days how a minority of passengers, the majority of which have no training of rail practices, think they know better than rail staff and emergency services and just go and do what they want. It means assistance needs to be diverted to those walking along the line and will just slow the "rescue" of the remaining passengers, who have done the right thing by waiting.

Of course this may not of happened if the train had a guard, but there is no way of being certain. DOO simply cant be reversed due to the high costs involved.

 

[GB]

While I don't condone aimlessly wondering around the line, I can't actually fault the passengers for evaquating themselfs. It's seems like rational expectation of what human beings would do in such circumstances.

 

[swj99]

This is especially so with fire service campaigns claiming that three breaths of smoke can kill.........

It is estimated that 50–80% of fire deaths are the result of smoke inhalation injuries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_inhalation
Not only that, but just breathing the fumes of a burning carrier bag can cause illness.
Was anyone from here actually involved in the incident ? Can anyone say for sure just how far the smoke and fumes from the fire had spread through the train. I don't know which way the wind was blowing on that particular day so I can't predict how far the smoke travelled in the vicinity of the train.

Are the RAIB investingating this one ? If so, wouldn't it be better to wait for some conclusive findings rather than condemning people who may well have acted according to their survival instincts ?

 

[jon0844]

It sounds like there were some idiots who may have walked back beside the fire, but did all of them do it?

Did everyone actually get off the train?

I don't know the answers to this, but I do see from 'eye witness' reports that we had some people saying they were told what to do and some weren't. Maybe due to a problem with the PA system.

So, I really do hope the RAIB is investigating as this will almost certainly investigate all of these things, so the TOCs can shoulder the blame for things they may have failed to do (have working safety systems, sufficient notices etc) and passengers can take the blame for what they did, or didn't do.

If you had a 4, 8 or 12 car train that was extremely busy or stock with no through gangways, even a guard could have done very little. If the driver was incapacitated in an incident, the guard would be doing all the safety things a driver would do - still leaving passengers alone for a time.

What we'd need would be a member of cabin crew in each coach in an ideal world, to give information to passengers and help with any evacuation or safe movement to another part of the train. That's obviously not going to happen, even on Intercity services that have more crew.

 

[Daz28]

I cant believe how people can defend how these people acted. By all means leave the train, but move AWAY from the fire

Who says this didn't happen? Were you there?

NOT walk along a line PAST THE FIRE ITSELF

Perhaps the fire was out by then? Why are you assuming that the passengers did something stupid?

without any assistance from staff and ignoring the single staff member who told passengers to just move down the train away from the fire.

We have one report that the driver advised some passengers to move down the train. It is not clear if this was via the PA or whether it was in person. We have many reports that there were no PA announcements. It is apparent that there was limited communication at best. We don't know how many people, if any, heard the advice and ignored it.

Some passengers may not of heard the driver, but it doesnt mean you "follow the flock" and walk up the line.

Why not? There is safety in numbers, following a crowd seems a reasonable thing to do.

Pathetic these days how a minority of passengers, the majority of which have no training of rail practices, think they know better than rail staff and emergency services and just go and do what they want.

Pathetic how some people assume that passengers are selfish lemmings who are incapable of thinking for themselves and weighing up a set of risks and making a personal decision.

It means assistance needs to be diverted to those walking along the line and will just slow the "rescue" of the remaining passengers, who have done the right thing by waiting.

Nice rhetoric, but there is no evidence that the rescue was delayed by those actions.

Of course this may not of happened if the train had a guard, but there is no way of being certain. DOO simply cant be reversed due to the high costs involved.

There have been several posts suggesting that there were off-duty rail staff on board and others have explained that a guard is unlikely to have made a difference. By all means argue against DOO, but I don't think this will support your cause. I think the opposite applies, a busy train catching fire and being safely evacuated whilst being DOO helps to demonstrate that DOO does not affect safety.

 

[ushawk]

Who says this didn't happen? Were you there

No, im going by all the evidence i have seen over the internet and from what has been said on here and on News articles.

Perhaps the fire was out by then? Why are you assuming that the passengers did something stupid?

So that means it cant re-ignite and still isnt a danger ? Hardly a sensible decision doing that.

We have one report that the driver advised some passengers to move down the train. It is not clear if this was via the PA or whether it was in person. We have many reports that there were no PA announcements. It is apparent that there was limited communication at best. We don't know how many people, if any, heard the advice and ignored it.

No PA announcements were reported (probably down to the loss of power). It would have probably been the driver coming out of the cab into cab 1 at a guess, but we dont know the full details.

Why not? There is safety in numbers, following a crowd seems a reasonable thing to do.

Oh so because other people do something, others can follow as its perfectly safe ? Sorry, that is a pretty stupid statement. Just because a group of people do something it doesnt make it safe.

Pathetic how some people assume that passengers are selfish lemmings who are incapable of thinking for themselves and weighing up a set of risks and making a personal decision.

Not all passengers are selfish, i said a MINORITY are, the majority do the right thing. IE those that just evacuated, moved away from the fire and waited for assistance are the passengers who did the right thing.

Nice rhetoric, but there is no evidence that the rescue was delayed by those actions.

Of course not, i was saying there is a possibility, i mean the tracks would need checking.

There have been several posts suggesting that there were off-duty rail staff on board and others have explained that a guard is unlikely to have made a difference. By all means argue against DOO, but I don't think this will support your cause. I think the opposite applies, a busy train catching fire and being safely evacuated whilst being DOO helps to demonstrate that DOO does not affect safety.

In all fairness we dont know if a guard would have made a difference - especially as the train was formed of 2 465 units, which dont have corridor connections, so if there was a guard, it wouldnt of helped if they were in the rear of the train. Of course having off-duty staff on board is useful, but it isnt always the case.

 

[marlon465]

I cant believe how people can defend how these people acted. By all means leave the train, but move AWAY from the fire (IE remain where the passengers on the bridge were, as this was a good distance away - and wait for assistance), NOT walk along a line PAST THE FIRE ITSELF, without any assistance from staff and ignoring the single staff member who told passengers to just move down the train away from the fire. Some passengers may not of heard the driver, but it doesnt mean you "follow the flock" and walk up the line.

You seem to have overlooked my rebuttal of the "past the fire itself" argument. The fire was quite likely to have been out by the time passengers 'wandered' beyond the fire (not that they would have known precisely where it was) and passengers looked to check on the welfare of the driver - is that really such a bad thing?

For those that continued up this way, it is unlikely they knew where the fire was and even if they did, wind direction and proximity of one station against another probably weighed up to head in the direction they were.

Maybe due to a problem with the PA system.

So, I really do hope the RAIB is investigating as this will almost certainly investigate all of these things, so the TOCs can shoulder the blame for things they may have failed to do (have working safety systems, sufficient notices etc) and passengers can take the blame for what they did, or didn't do.

This is certainly the argument I made/I'd make. The reliability of the PA address is shocking on the networkers. Sitting behind the cab as I often do, you quite often hear the driver making announcements which don't even make it out, let alone in a perfectly audible fashion.
As far as I understand it, on the Underground its part of the train crew's duty in the morning to send out a test message and check its audibility throughout the train; something that ought to be done across the board.

I return to the point made that passengers should remain in situ until instructed others. At what point does one take one's life into their own hands? Two/three hours without any contact. Two/three hours with smoke or hundred degree + heat in rush hour conditions? I do wonder...
If anything, it reflects a lack of trust in the rail industry between passengers and staff members. Surely this needs remedying and pointing the finger of blame at customers the moment they don't act like the sheep rail staff wish they were (incidentally ushawk you are quite critical of sheep like behaviour...) is not going to do anything to improve this relationship which quite clearly is safety-critical.

 

[ushawk]

You seem to have overlooked my rebuttal of the "past the fire itself" argument. The fire was quite likely to have been out by the time passengers 'wandered' beyond the fire (not that they would have known precisely where it was) and passengers looked to check on the welfare of the driver - is that really such a bad thing?

For those that continued up this way, it is unlikely they knew where the fire was and even if they did, wind direction and proximity of one station against another probably weighed up to head in the direction they were.

You seem to of totally missed it where i said it could of easily re-ignited, things can happen. Pictures were taken of bits of it still on fire so people were pretty close to it. Chances are they could smell the burning and easily see where the fire was (i mean from the pictures, its not exactly hard to miss) so they would of known where the fire was. Some passengers may of course wanted to check the welfare of the driver, but there is no proof of this and how exactly does this count to walking up a line ?

 

[OxtedL]

Oh goodness me.

Getting irate about passengers de-training themselves when they just have to wait and are in no danger is one thing, but condemning people for getting off a train which as far as they were concerned was on fire and therefore dangerous is a bit of a thankless task.

If they'd been killed by their actions then it would be an entirely different argument, but they appear to have rather sensibly (fortunately?) got out on the opposite side to the third rail and out of the way of immediately passing trains.

There's not much to be gained by endlessly repeating how there's a possibility that if things were slightly different they might have been injured, as you have already made that point. And also, they weren't. Thankfully.

 

[Michael.Y]

The one thing that grates me is that earlier in the thread there were gripes from pax on the service about not finding staff after they had summarily, unilaterally and arbitrarily detrained themselves.

When the safety advice is to stay on a train and/or move to another carriage, and there is only a driver on board who has a responsibility to protect his train by performing his safety critical tasks, there is equally nothing to be gained from pax complaining that there was no staff around to help.

A DOO-train driver has every right to an expectation that his pax will stay on the train unless told to do otherwise. This fire was at the leading edge of the front carriage. Even on SouthEastern, that's still 7 other carriages to evac into. Away from the flames. Unfortunately, as is nearly always the case, people think they know better and do what they like, including walking miles on live track in the dark.

And who gets the blame when someone gets electrocuted then I wonder?

 

[BestWestern]

There have been several posts suggesting that there were off-duty rail staff on board and others have explained that a guard is unlikely to have made a difference. By all means argue against DOO, but I don't think this will support your cause. I think the opposite applies, a busy train catching fire and being safely evacuated whilst being DOO helps to demonstrate that DOO does not affect safety.

I'm afraid you rather missed the point. To suggest that the train was 'evacuated safely' implies that passengers were escorted from the train in an orderly and safe manner. That is not the case. What actually occurred was an 'uncontrolled evacuation', a term which speaks for itself. People let themselves out of the train, against the instructions of the sole member of traincrew on board, who was able to do absolutely nothing about it because he was required to carry out his operational duties. This large group of people then seemingly wandered aimlessly around an operational commuter railway line until they were eventually rounded up and escorted to a place of safety. The fact that nobody was electrocuted, fell and injured themselves, got hit by another train or came to grief in some other way during this incident is down to sheer luck and circumstance, and in no way whatsoever proves that DOO is 'safe'.

The railway appears to have had luck on it's side for some years now in that no major incident involving a DOO train has occurred and shown up the obvious issues with this form of operation. However with this increasing trend for people to let themselves off stranded commuter trains of their own accord, it can only be a matter of time before we see a death or serious injury, and it remains the case that a second trained member of staff on board, who is able to stay with the train and deal with the passengers when the Driver cannot, has the potential to stop this happening.

 

[marlon465]

This fire was at the leading edge of the front carriage. Even on SouthEastern, that's still 7 other carriages to evac into. Away from the flames.

Technically three others, through narrow passageways that would take quite a considerable amount of time to evacuate a carriage's worth of passengers through - during such a time the smoke would of course travel with the passengers.

Some passengers may of course wanted to check the welfare of the driver, but there is no proof of this and how exactly does this count to walking up a line ?

Passenger accounts suggest that they wished to check on the welfare of the driver. This translates into walking thirty metres up the line perhaps because of the risk of re-ignition that you have suggested?

 

[GB]

A DOO-train driver has every right to an expectation that his pax will stay on the train unless told to do otherwise. This fire was at the leading edge of the front carriage. Even on SouthEastern, that's still 7 other carriages to evac into. Away from the flames. Unfortunately, as is nearly always the case, people think they know better and do what they like, including walking miles on live track in the dark.

Given there are no gang ways it would be pretty difficult to evacuate into the rear 4 cars.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

While I don't condone aimlessly wondering around the line, I can't actually fault the passengers for evaquating themselfs. It's seems like rational expectation of what human beings would do in such circumstances.

Couldn't agree more.

Let's remember that passengers are human beings and will not want to stay on the same train as a fire. They are not robots. A rational or indeed irrational sense of self preservation will kick in. I can quite understand people wanting to to get off when there is only a voice on a PA system asking them to stay on in such a situation.


Sent from my iPhone 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Daz28]

I'm afraid you rather missed the point. To suggest that the train was 'evacuated safely' implies that passengers were escorted from the train in an orderly and safe manner.

No, evacuated safely means that everyone got out without injury or fatality.

You do not have to be led by someone wearing a British Rail uniform for it to be safe.

That is not the case. What actually occurred was an 'uncontrolled evacuation', a term which speaks for itself.

Most evacutions from fire, whether a train, a building, whatever are 'uncontrolled'. Uncontrolled does not mean unsafe, although the two do sometimes go together.

This large group of people then seemingly wandered aimlessly around an operational commuter railway line until they were eventually rounded up and escorted to a place of safety.

Why invent things that there is no evidence for? Some hung around the train and were escorted down the embankment by the emergency services. Others walked the short distance (about half a mile) to Mottingham, the next station and exited there. Where was the aimless wandering?

The fact that nobody was electrocuted, fell and injured themselves, got hit by another train or came to grief in some other way during this incident is down to sheer luck and circumstance, and in no way whatsoever proves that DOO is 'safe'.

Why attribute it to luck? How about giving the passengers some credit for avoiding the dangers and behaving sensibly? How about applauding the driver for taking the correct actions to make the site safe? How about applauding SouthEastern for their processes?

There seem to be a lot of people on this thread willing to put all the good things down to luck, all the passenger actions down to stupidity, and all the staff actions as futile.

 

[BestWestern]

No, evacuated safely means that everyone got out without injury or fatality.......

We will have to agree to disagree then it would seem. I'm afraid that as a member of train crew who is very well aware of how hazardous a working railway line is, I cannot accept that a trainload of passengers doing their own thing because there is only one member of staff who is otherwise occupied is in any way 'safe'. I have attributed it to luck because that is what it was, there was every chance that somebody could quite easily have been hurt, or worse. I find it increasingly worrying that there is a growing view among some that passengers are always knowledgeable enough about the railway to be able to self-evacuate perfectly safely, and that any instruction from crew members or other qualified railway staff is superfluous and can be ignored. This is not the case, and as I said earlier somebody will end up getting hurt or worse because of this attitude.

It's easy to appreciate the views of these passengers here, the train was on fire and they feared for their lives. My real gripe is with the precarious circumstance they were put in because of DOO. I really cannot understand how anybody can honestly argue that this sort of situation is satisfactorily safe.

 

[Daz28]

I really cannot understand how anybody can honestly argue that this sort of situation is satisfactorily safe.

I think the reason for your difficulty is because there is no such thing as "safe". Each person and each group of people will have a different judgement of what is safe for them, it is a broad spectrum. There will be some people who never get on a train for fear of their safety, in the same way that some people never leave their house for the same reasons.

People have to make choices against alternatives.

Is it safer to stay on a broken down train or get off? Usually safer to stay on.
Is it safer to stay on a hot 100F train or get off? Depends on your tolerance, general health and when you last drank water.
Is it safer to stay on a burning train if you are near the fire? Probably not.
Is it safer to stay on a burning train if you are at the other end? Probably true.

All of the above judgements could be different if you were unfit, unwell or unable to move easily. You could easily change your opinion if your job, your family or something else depended on you getting somewhere soon.

I don't think it wise for passengers to wander around a railway, and I certainly don't want to encourage them. There are not many situations where getting off a train is better than staying on. Train on fire is however one of them.

 

[jon0844]

It would only take one person to come through saying 'the train is on fire' to suddenly change the minds of people who might have opted to stay on the train.

Whether there's just a driver, a driver and guard or an Intercity train with an additional crew, there are things that could happen to suddenly cause panic that you're unlikely to be able to do anything to stop.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but at the time I am sure many people saw fire and thought the worst. Just as many passengers might not know about third rail, how many might not realise there were no fuel tanks and a modern train is pretty well insulated (such that I doubt there was any real risk of the carriage actually catching fire). If you were on the train to tell passengers in that coach, would they listen when they saw flames outside and thick smoke coming through the ventilation system (or open windows, depending on the stock)?

I have no time for those who get off a train as it's simply broken down, or there's a delay ahead, but once you have fire - I don't think most people will hang about. They'd probably not care about being arrested, locked up or banned from using a train again (assuming they'd want to use a train again, depending on the severity of the fire).

 

[island]

Of course this may not of happened if the train had a guard, but there is no way of being certain.

You seem to of totally missed it where i said it could of easily re-ignited, things can happen.

"Have", not "of".

 

[Daz28]

Chiltern have put their safety notices online:

Class 168 Clubman

Class 165 Turbo

Class 121 Bubblecar

I couldn't find anything equivalent on the South Eastern site.

 

[tsr]

Chiltern have put their safety notices online:

Class 168 Clubman

Class 165 Turbo

Class 121 Bubblecar

I couldn't find anything equivalent on the South Eastern site.

If I happened to be on a 121 that caught fire, I'm afraid to say I would probably evacuate as soon as I could after the train had stopped, unless of course there was nowhere safer to evacuate to...

 

[ushawk]

"Have", not "of".

I keep making that mistake - thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Michael.Y]

If I happened to be on a 121 that caught fire, I'm afraid to say I would probably evacuate as soon as I could after the train had stopped, unless of course there was nowhere safer to evacuate to...

Given there's no other carriage to evacuate to, that is the only option.

 

[jon0844]

Would it then be considered okay to get off the train?

 

[Michael.Y]

Would it then be considered okay to get off the train?

Well yes. As I've mentioned before, it is the second option on a multiple car unit, so it is advised, just not preferred. Ideally, on a 2-car or more unit, you should evacuate to the next carriage. Only if this is not possible or advisable should you detrain.

Also, with a 1-car unit, there will be less people to marshall and the driver/guard will be more aware of the situation, so will be able to organise pax more safely.

It's not rocket science.

 

[tsr]

Given there's no other carriage to evacuate to, that is the only option.

A very small, slow-burning fire might possibly be tackled, should the train be very quiet (i.e. really low numbers of passengers). I am led to believe (from the safety posters) that there are fire extinguishers easily accessible between each set of seats.

Would it then be considered okay to get off the train?

I was being a bit flippant in my previous post. What I meant was if fire, smoke or other hazardous situations outweighed the drops, slippery surfaces, live cables and moving trains that can be faced on the live railway... then yes.

Well yes. As I've mentioned before, it is the second option on a multiple car unit, so it is advised, just not preferred. Ideally, on a 2-car or more unit, you should evacuate to the next carriage. Only if this is not possible or advisable should you detrain.

Also, with a 1-car unit, there will be less people to marshall and the driver/guard will be more aware of the situation, so will be able to organise pax more safely.

It's not rocket science.

Quite.

 

[BestWestern]

Whether there's just a driver, a driver and guard or an Intercity train with an additional crew, there are things that could happen to suddenly cause panic that you're unlikely to be able to do anything to stop.

I agree, you are absolutely right. However you are at least then able to exercise some degree of control/containment of the situation, and deal with people who are leaving/have left the train rather than leave them to their own devices, potentially alongside a live rail or next to other running lines where trains may approach, because there is only a Driver and he is dealing with the incident itself.

Make no mistake, train crew are trained very specifically that in the event of an emergency your first priority is to go and protect the line. You do not give the welfare of the passengers a second's thought until that is done. Many trainers and competence managers will hammer home this point by using the example that you have passengers lying about injured, dying, trapped in a fire etc. Or perhaps you are aware of people leaving the train and coming dangerously close to the traction current prior to it being isolated. Perhaps somebody has even come into contact with it and is seriously hurt. So what do you do? You leave them where they are and protect the train. Those passengers are not your priority, regardless of what is happening to them.

If there is a Driver taking care of the protection, the Guard can help those passengers. I don't feel it is overly difficult to justify having that Guard. Luck cannot be relied upon to save the day every time.

 

[jon0844]

If everyone suddenly gets off in a panic, there's not much any amount of crew can do.

What I would say is that in such circumstances, the railway shouldn't (as I expect it would) suddenly be held accountable.

I'm sure if someone jumped off the wrong side of the train and into the path of another, or was electrocuted, there would end up being some prosecution against the TOC or Network Rail.

As I said before though, if the driver was unconscious or worse after an incident, wouldn't the guard take up the duties of the driver and the passengers are in exactly the same situation? And if the guard can't walk through a busy train or the PA system is broken?

Sure, a guard would help - but not necessarily by much. I'd love to see staff on trains, but to be honest - I'd rather see a driver driving, and doing the doors manually wherever possible (either using onboard cameras, platform mirrors/screens or a disaptcher) and the 'guard' performing revenue duties but being fully trained (and paid) for emergency/safety work.

I know most guards would hate that prospect, but it would be the only way I could ever see any TOC deciding it's worthwhile putting an additional person on every DOO train. If it made passengers feel safer, then that's another benefit - but you still have the problem of a guard being isolated on rolling stock without end gangways.

 

[tsr]

To be perfectly honest, I would far rather trains to be semi-automatic and driven (as required) remotely, but for there to be an onboard guard to assist passengers in their general travel and during incidents. Essentially, this would be somewhat like the DLR, except that the guard would be on board permanently, would only drive the train in a technical incident such as a loss of communications, and would otherwise be fully focussed on assisting passengers.

 

[jon0844]

The DLR system would probably mean having to invest serious amounts of money to make the railway more protected from trespassing (and associated crime, like leaving things on the track) the elements (fallen trees) or more serious things. The DLR goes a lot slower and is fairly enclosed. I'm sure it has its trespass problems, but not on the same scale, and with far lower risk than a train doing 100-140mph.

An onboard guard could step in at any time, sure, but with fewer eyes on the track all the time, how many things would go unnoticed that a driver can currently see and report, or take appropriate action to alert other people?

I say keep the driver and find a cost effective way of putting other staff on the train. Yes, we can make a driverless train (and far easier than a driverless car!) but that doesn't mean we have to. And always keep a driver in the cab to oversee things.