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Trains struck location cabinet doors

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Martin66

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https://www.gov.uk/government/news/trains-struck-location-cabinet-doors-chipping-sodbury

Trains struck location cabinet doors, Chipping Sodbury tunnel, Gloucestershire, 20 February 2017.

In the early evening of 20 February, two trains struck location cabinet doors that had been left unsecured and were drawn towards the track by the aerodynamic effects of passing trains. The trains suffered some external damage but no one was injured.

We have undertaken a preliminary examination into the circumstances surrounding this accident. Having assessed the evidence which has been gathered to date, we have decided to publish a safety digest.

The safety digest will shortly be made available on our website.

s300_Chipping_Sodbury.jpg
 
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Pinza-C55

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You'd have thought that in a restricted clearance area the locations would have had sliding doors ?
 

headshot119

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I thought of a simple solution to this problem.

The LOC cabinet door is fitted with an alarm. When you open the door a 30 second count down begins beeping each second. After the 30 seconds a loud alarm sounds.

The person accessing the cabinet has a small device attached to there belt with a coil attached to it, on the end of this coil is a small metal bar which pushes into the alarm box to silence it.

If the person walks away the metal bar pulls out and causes the alarm to sound, if they don't close the door properly the alarm sounds etc.
 

Chris M

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I thought of a simple solution to this problem.

The LOC cabinet door is fitted with an alarm. When you open the door a 30 second count down begins beeping each second. After the 30 seconds a loud alarm sounds.

The person accessing the cabinet has a small device attached to there belt with a coil attached to it, on the end of this coil is a small metal bar which pushes into the alarm box to silence it.

If the person walks away the metal bar pulls out and causes the alarm to sound, if they don't close the door properly the alarm sounds etc.

That would only work if the door was detected locked (in the Watford Tunnel incident the door was closed but not secured and was reopened by the aerodynamic effects of passing trains, not by anyone who would hear an alarm). It should also not be possible for the doors to be closed (or appear to be closed) with the silencer in situ to avoid misuse (I expect this would be fairly simple to engineer).
 

Oldrowley

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Whilst the circumstances are different, there are similarities with the Ealing disaster of December 1973.
Quote from Wiki
"The locomotive, Class 52 diesel-hydraulic number 1007 Western Talisman, had spent the previous night at Old Oak Common depot and had had its batteries recharged. A door on the battery box had been left unlocked and fell open shortly into the journey. It hit the platform at Ealing Broadway, breaking the arms supporting it and allowing it to swing down and hit a point operating machine. The points moved under the locomotive, throwing it onto its side and derailing the coaches, which came to rest across the tracks.

Victims

Ten passengers were killed and 94 were injured.
 

headshot119

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That would only work if the door was detected locked (in the Watford Tunnel incident the door was closed but not secured and was reopened by the aerodynamic effects of passing trains, not by anyone who would hear an alarm). It should also not be possible for the doors to be closed (or appear to be closed) with the silencer in situ to avoid misuse (I expect this would be fairly simple to engineer).

Interlocking the handle with the alarm shouldn't be difficult, nor should engineering not being able to shut the door with the disarmer in situ.

Shall we patent it :p
 

Swanny200

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Would some type of magnetic lock work or would air disturbance still cause problems.

I have read the accident report for the Ealing accident and to be honest it goes to show how safety critical these things should be, something as simple as a turnscrew caused loss of life and countless injuries.
 

Elecman

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Would some type of magnetic lock work or would air disturbance still cause problems.

I have read the accident report for the Ealing accident and to be honest it goes to show how safety critical these things should be, something as simple as a turnscrew caused loss of life and countless injuries.

The old method of a horizontal locking bar across the front of the cubicle would work best, no chance of the door opening. With a 2 inch wide steel bar across the front of the doors
 

tellytype

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We have this kind of functionality on rack doors in datacentres & street cabinets. Alarms raised back to Network operations if they aren't locked closed. Surely the railway isn't so backwards as to not have S&T cabs unmonitored?!!?
 

Llanigraham

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We have this kind of functionality on rack doors in datacentres & street cabinets. Alarms raised back to Network operations if they aren't locked closed. Surely the railway isn't so backwards as to not have S&T cabs unmonitored?!!?

Have you noticed how many thousands of these cabinets there are?
 

SpacePhoenix

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If the cabinet contains the signalling equipment for the section, could the alarm be interlocked with the signal before so that the signal is set to red when the alarm for the door being open is activated?
 

edwin_m

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Would some type of magnetic lock work or would air disturbance still cause problems.

The aerodynamic forces in tunnels can be huge. Another recent one from RAIB:

The accident occurred because the trolleys had been stored in the tunnel recesses without being adequately secured and the airflow generated within the pressure relief shafts was large enough to lift and move the trolleys onto the track.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ing-trolley-stowe-hill-tunnel-7-december-2016
 

Llanigraham

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If the cabinet contains the signalling equipment for the section, could the alarm be interlocked with the signal before so that the signal is set to red when the alarm for the door being open is activated?

Sorry, but have you looked at how many cabinets there are?
There is not one per section; it can be as many as one per signal and then there are cabinets for level crossings, cabinets for axle box counters, cabinets for hot axle box detectors, etc.
There are thousands of them!
 

Pinza-C55

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Sorry, but have you looked at how many cabinets there are?
There is not one per section; it can be as many as one per signal and then there are cabinets for level crossings, cabinets for axle box counters, cabinets for hot axle box detectors, etc.
There are thousands of them!

Not many in tunnels though. Most locations are set well back from the track.
 

Chris M

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Sorry, but have you looked at how many cabinets there are?
There is not one per section; it can be as many as one per signal and then there are cabinets for level crossings, cabinets for axle box counters, cabinets for hot axle box detectors, etc.
There are thousands of them!

OK, interlocking every cabinet is impractical. What about interlocking only those where the doors foul the loading gauge of the line?
If going down this route I can see that it would be beneficial to identify which cabinets were interlocked and which weren't. A large red or black bullseye or strip on the doors would do the trick without breaking the bank I'd have thought.
 

tsr

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Some location cabinets and other local equipment housings certainly are remotely monitored. Indeed, this was used in my area very recently to pick up on the suspected spread of a certain type of criminal activity, alert response teams and allow better tracking of behavioural patterns.

There are also a variety of means of locking the doors, positioning the doors and so on. Sometimes the most efficient and elegant solutions are also the simplest; the idea of sliding doors, mentioned above, is one which I do quite like, yet something which I rarely see.
 

XCTurbostar

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We always design cabinets to have zero touch potential to trains as well as other cabinets to reduce short circuiting as well as simply having the cabinet doors open away from the track towards the cess.
Much of the telecoms equipment on today's railway is redundant but has not been recovered due to cost impliacations. As a result, some are just exposed to the elements.

Thanks,
Ross
 

edwin_m

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I suggest interlocking the cabinet doors with the signals is just introducing another source of failure. If this happened a technician would have to access a location that is difficult and probably dangerous to get to, and where by definition trains will have to be stopped while this takes place. An alarm via non-vital condition monitoring might be worth doing but it seems to me far better to design the problem out with sliding doors or similar for any cabinet that can't be put completely outside the gauge.
 

Swanny200

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The thing is, in a tunnel seems like a place where it is unlikely anyone would "tamper" with equipment, on a lineside possibly would be easier (there is an S&T cabinet not far from me that wouldn't take much effort to get to if I was in that way inclined) but in a tunnel I would imagine would be one of the safest places to be away from vandalism so there then needs to be some kind of device for maintainence workers then.

I thought the device already in place as described in earlier posts would have been suitable enough but obviously not, my original thought was interlock too but as we all know, electrical items can still be troublesome and an alarm going off may be annoying for some but it is better than the signals going red constantly until the problem is sorted and having to get permission to proceed.

I am wondering how long this alarm method has been in place though because I am sure I have heard an alarm going off in a tunnel before on a train about 5 years ago (on a train going through Haymarket tunnel in Edinburgh) faint alarm then it getting louder until you pass the point, wondered what it was and now the question maybe has been answered.

Other question, is it just one set of cabinets in a tunnel generally or more than one, if so what about fitting a visual aid as well as an alarm, for instance, train enters a tunnel and the driver sees a flashing amber light on a cabinet which denotes the door is ajar, he can then radio ahead or report it at his next stop it is an extra to the alarm because again what if the alarm fails or there is more than one cabinet in the tunnel and you need to know which one is the troublesome one straight away?
 

tellytype

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Yes I have noticed how many cabinets there are. Have you noticed how many mobile phone mast cabins & Bt street cabinets there are? A damn sight more I'll wager. And guess what, most of them have reed contacts on the doors & some kind of monitoring.

Quantity is no excuse for poor practice & not doing something which has been commonplace for security in the comms world for years now. Not to mention the safety implications on the railway.
 

Swanny200

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Yes I have noticed how many cabinets there are. Have you noticed how many mobile phone mast cabins & Bt street cabinets there are? A damn sight more I'll wager. And guess what, most of them have reed contacts on the doors & some kind of monitoring.

Quantity is no excuse for poor practice & not doing something which has been commonplace for security in the comms world for years now. Not to mention the safety implications on the railway.

Problem is when you see one of these street cabinets open with loads of stuff ripped out and you try to find out who owns it. I rang BT and Virgin one day and gave the location and each said it was the other's cabinet, sat open for over a week and everytime the cabinet was pushed shut again someone came along and opened it (lock was broken) eventually saw a BT guy there and said that I had reported it weeks earlier and that BT denied it was theirs, the guy grunted at me and said "they don't know their arse from their elbow in the call centres"
 

Llanigraham

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Yes I have noticed how many cabinets there are. Have you noticed how many mobile phone mast cabins & Bt street cabinets there are? A damn sight more I'll wager. And guess what, most of them have reed contacts on the doors & some kind of monitoring.

Quantity is no excuse for poor practice & not doing something which has been commonplace for security in the comms world for years now. Not to mention the safety implications on the railway.

Well having friends that work for Openreach and they say that none of their street cabinets have alarms fitted.

And sorry but quantity is a problem:
1/ where are all the alarms going to be situated?
2/ who is going to monitor them?
3/ where are the staff going to come from to check them?
4/ what are you going to do when an alarm goes off?
 

Crossover

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Some location cabinets and other local equipment housings certainly are remotely monitored. Indeed, this was used in my area very recently to pick up on the suspected spread of a certain type of criminal activity, alert response teams and allow better tracking of behavioural patterns.

There are also a variety of means of locking the doors, positioning the doors and so on. Sometimes the most efficient and elegant solutions are also the simplest; the idea of sliding doors, mentioned above, is one which I do quite like, yet something which I rarely see.

A general problem with sliding doors is hampering access to equipment, especially at the point where the two meet (presuming there are two) where you may never fully get to what is behind. We have some cupboards in my office at work - sliding doors are fitted and the only way as you'd need an entirely empty room to open them otherwise as they are pretty big, but sometimes I have to do a shuffle to get the kit in the middle out (mostly used for storing IT spares) as you can't remove it directly from side or the other. doors split into 3 could help this though, but would require a deeper recess if all 3 were to slide independently
 

yorkie

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If the cabinet contains the signalling equipment for the section, could the alarm be interlocked with the signal before so that the signal is set to red when the alarm for the door being open is activated?
Do you think that would be even remotely affordable? :o
 

Elecman

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All locs are fitted with padlocks or locks but sometimes human error creeps in.

As I said previously for those in positions where trains could conceivably hit the open doors just revert to the system of a horizontal locking bar across the doors.
 
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