Re Yesterday's Disruption

[Deleted]

As an outsider, all I have to go on is what has been published in the Standard and Metro, and has been written above - none of which tell me much about what happened, so to come up with any meaningful comment would be to theorise without data.

But it certainly does seem that it took too long to get people out - I will wait to hear to what extent this was down to the time to make an evacuation decision, the time to ensure that evacuation could safely proceed and the time to actually perform the evacuation. I trust the results of the investigations underway will be published in due course...

But, given the bad day LU had yesterday, I am somewhat surprised that this morning's MetroTravel did not have anything to say, nor that there is no Press release (on the TfL website), to give an apology or 'LU' view of what happened. Even if the enquiries to establish full facts are still ongoing, it should be possible to produce a narrative report (from service managers' reports, &c), with identification of the known unknowns.

What passengers emerging after being trapped for a few hours say isn't going to give a fair acount!

[Deleted]

I travelled on the Jubilee just 10 minutes before all this happened. I'm so jealous!! Why couldn't I be late for work as usual?

Walking in the tube tunnels is my dream! ;D

[SE13]

It's not for us to speculate what happened, that'll be down to higher bodies.

However, with all forms of transport, the safety and comfort of the passengers is the most important thing, it's drilled into staff from day 1 of employment. No decision can possibly be taken willy-nilly and certainly not without the authority from higher sources than the mere mortals that operate the vehicles whatever they may be.

I strongly suspect that the stories reported aren't entirely correct, and we'd need to wait for a full report before anyone can comment.

One thing worth thinking about..... Would you be prepared to tread on a juice rail without absolute confidence that the juice was off? If the driver isn't, then he certainly isn't going to send pax to attempt it first!

[Ben]

Is it not part of the procedure for detraining between stations that the driver placed the SCD onto the juice rails just to be sure?

[SE13]

Oct 19, 2010 16:37:04 GMT Ben said:

Is it not part of the procedure for detraining between stations that the driver placed the SCD onto the juice rails just to be sure?

In theory I suppose, but remember I don't work for LU....

It wouldn't be as cut and dry as placing the SCD on the track and tipping down the tracks, there's all the H&S issues, permissions and I don't know what else to think about first, remembering that at all times the passenger safety MUST be to the fore. So basically until such time as permission is granted, guides through the tunnels are in place and so on, nobody is going anywhere for their own safety.

Personally speaking, I'd rather be stuck sweating my [insert whatever] off in a tunnel than risk a few thousand volts hurtling up my legs, or face an oncoming train in the way.

[Deleted]

Just a question, why does it take so long for the line to get back to normal running? If its delayed AM its still running with delays PM, often late into the evening. You'd think with a straight forward line, no branches it would be easier to get back on timetable.

[Deleted]

Oct 19, 2010 17:02:56 GMT @dave72 said:

Just a question, why does it take so long for the line to get back to normal running? If its delayed AM its still running with delays PM, often late into the evening. You'd think with a straight forward line, no branches it would be easier to get back on timetable.

Nuh-uh; I think it's because it's a single line it goes haywire when it fails. Anyone, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Deleted]

How long does it take to walk a packed tube trains worth of people along a tunnel?

Walking people out of the train is a last resort. One which is not undertaken lightly, however it is one that the staff are trained to undertake.

Procedures were tightened after the train radio failure on the Jubilee Line a couple of years back and no doubt London Underground as well as the Office of rail regulator will be looking at LU's response and will advise accordingly.

Althought today a similar incident that required passengers being walked out of the tunnels, but this time on the Victoria Line. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11575123

[SE13]

Oct 19, 2010 17:02:56 GMT @dave72 said:

Just a question, why does it take so long for the line to get back to normal running? If its delayed AM its still running with delays PM, often late into the evening. You'd think with a straight forward line, no branches it would be easier to get back on timetable.

Because every train will be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are complications such as driver hours and their limitations, that in turn means scrambling spares from all over the place to meet trains in the wrong locations, then turning trains early to try to get back to timetable.

It's quite a complex process because (say) the EB could be running fine for an hour or two while there are delays on the WB, as soon as the EB train reaches it's destination, it has nowhere to go, meaning there are literally dozens of trains stuck back down the line with nowhere to go.

I'm sure an LU driver can explain what happens far better than I can....

[SE13]

One thing I think is worthy of a mention is that if my bus breaks down, I can tip out, put pax on the following service which will then overtake my bus and all is well. That simply can't happen on rails.

Think of it then as a single track one way road... My bus breaks down, and all the following services are then stacked up behind me. The only way to get to me is down that route from the opposite direction in an illegal move. Permission from various people including the police and highways has to be granted, no doubt supervised as well until I can be recovered. Meantime the whole route is absolutely decimated, and there isn't a spare bus to replace me as they are all in service but stuck behind me. Runs have to be dropped, others running empty to get to required places at required times, others turn short for a connection, and all in order to get the right buses to the right places at the right times.

I certainly don't envy the job of the people in charge of this.

However, with the link provided above, how the service can be regarded as a shambles is quite beyond me..... You simply can't predict a breakdown unless you have a crystal ball, and delays are inevitable as a result of one. Power failures are something well beyond the control of LU in the first place, so how they can be held accountable for yesterday is laughable.

[Chris W]

One issue that may raise concerns is that both incidents have occurred on lines that have seen much investment in their recent history. Replacement 09ts on the Victoria that co-incidentally was involved today and seemingly endless weekends of works on the Jubilee (albeit the works relating to the new signaling systems).

Reading comments from passengers involved yesterday in this evenings Standard may raise the issue of communication with driver's caught in these circumstances:

The driver seemed to be doing all he could. It didn't sound like he was being very well supported by his fellow staff, especially for the first hour and a half

This contributer (Nilesh @ Harrow also comments):

I was particular;y frustrated to find out that after I "touched out" at St John's Wood, it registered an complete journey, resulting in a negative balance on my Oyster card. When I got an 82 bus I was told that I did not have enough credit on my Oyster and was made to leave - that hurt more than the nightmare of being stuck

I've tried to look for the direct quote on the EVENING STANDARD website, however have given up after an extensive search

One piece of journalism that I have rolled my eyes at this evening is at the BBCs London regional news programme that referred to one passenger as being terrified. I can appreciate that some unfortunate people do have panic attacks and/or may suffer with claustrophobia, but the safest place really is on board a train despite the frustration of not getting to where you want to be or the heat!

Predictably unions are claiming that the underground is in 'crisis' I'm NOT against unions, quite the opposite, but their reactions read more like reactionary 'middle-england' Daily ****/******* tabloid newspaper journalists by the day!

As the only non-railway administrator I'm not saying that LU are blameless; but having been pushed down the failed PPP route by central Government (don't forget that pre-1997 the then John Major Government wanted to privatise LU if they had won that election), they are way behind completing works and are now facing cuts courtesy of the handling of the economy by the Labour administration.

Ever heard of the term... rock and a hard place.

[superteacher]

Was the Victoria line problem another sensitive edge issue on the 2009 stock?

[Deleted]

How do they evacuate a wheelchair user from a tunnel? Can't get the chair through the J doors I believe.

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2010 7:01:18 GMT @eirikho said:

How do they evacuate a wheelchair user from a tunnel? Can't get the chair through the J doors I believe.

Carry them? Get two guys, top and tail the user down the tunnel. ;D

OTOH they could be kept in the wheelchair seating bay with a member of staff/trusted passenger, and wait till the train is shifted to station.

IMHO the latter option is the best.

[railtechnician]

Oct 20, 2010 7:16:34 GMT @axewielder said:

Oct 20, 2010 7:01:18 GMT @eirikho said:

How do they evacuate a wheelchair user from a tunnel? Can't get the chair through the J doors I believe.

Carry them? Get two guys, top and tail the user down the tunnel. ;D

OTOH they could be kept in the wheelchair seating bay with a member of staff/trusted passenger, and wait till the train is shifted to station.

IMHO the latter option is the best.

Not a good idea if the train or tunnel is on fire! Then again wheelchairs are of no use in tunnels. I can't now recall if there are stretchers anywhere on a train but they exist on stations though how well maintained they are is another question!

[Deleted]

Oct 19, 2010 16:37:04 GMT Ben said:

Is it not part of the procedure for detraining between stations that the driver placed the SCD onto the juice rails just to be sure?

SCDs should always be put down once traction current is discharged to prevent it from being recharged in error while the detrainment is taking place. However SCDs should not be put down on live current other than in extreme emergency because there is no guarantee they will discharge it and other problems can ensue. I seem to recall an incident on the Picc a few years ago where an SCD was put down on live track and it exploded.

I don't know the full details of what has taken place in this instance but it does sound like it was pretty dreadful for the people involved.

[splashdown]

There are stretchers and carry sheets at stations. It depends on the situation but as long as no immediate danger the driver will be asked to work out how many people are on there train and anyone with special needs. This information will be passed onto the station staff so they can bring the correct equipment.

SCD's are placed on the track but this is after traction current is confirmed to be off. Usually nothing happens until station staff have arrived at the train. Then they will confirm if the procedure is to go ahead. Then the train ladder and SCD's will be placed down.

Length of time is dependant on how many staff are available, distance to the station and the amount of people stuck on the train. Added complication are points, trip hazards and bolt holes (people have a tendency to wander).

The de-trainments I have been involved in have been very simple with less than 100 people and myself and the driver walked everyone in a line pointing out trip hazards on the way. It took less than 15 minutes from train to station.

Rush hour trains full to the brim with the relative shortages of staff will take a lot longer.

[Colin]

For the record, "carry sheets" are carried on board trains to cover the eventuality of removing somebody that is unable to disembark under their own steam.

It would depend on the circumstances, but the preferred option is to leave a disabled person on the train with a member of staff. Obviously if it's likely the train won't move for some hours they will be taken off, though they would most likely be left until last if the carry sheet option is required.

[cso]

Oct 20, 2010 9:23:50 GMT Colin said:

For the record, "carry sheets" are carried on board trains to cover the eventuality of removing somebody that is unable to disembark under their own steam.

I'm glad to see that this is considered (not that I thought it woundn't be) but I have to say in this day and age of Health and Safety, I'm surprised people would be allowed to carry someone off on a sheet!

On a semi-related note (which may be wandering off-topic) to this, presumably more staff will head to trains down the tunnels to help with disembarking passengers? Also, is there anything done in case someone goes in to a panic attack etc. to have medical people / first aiders around?

[Tomcakes]

Oct 20, 2010 9:41:29 GMT cso said:

Oct 20, 2010 9:23:50 GMT Colin said:

For the record, "carry sheets" are carried on board trains to cover the eventuality of removing somebody that is unable to disembark under their own steam.

I'm glad to see that this is considered (not that I thought it woundn't be) but I have to say in this day and age of Health and Safety, I'm surprised people would be allowed to carry someone off on a sheet

Slight derivation - but the problem is not with H&S rules, it's with people who think that H&S rules mean you can't do anything!

I'm not aware of any safety rule that says "thou shalt not carry a disabled passenger on a sheet in an emergency". Presumably, someone has done a (cover your ears) risk assessment, provided appropriate instructions to staff, made sure the sheets are of a sturdy enough grade of canvas or whatever.

There was a thread on another forum recently about staff being first aid trained - when a certain transport conglomerate banned staff from rendering any first aid to passengers on the grounds that they took a workplace first aid certificate, not the advanced one which is apparently required to deal with members of the public, so it was too much of an insurance risk.

Presumably in the event of any such disruption any off duty medical staff or transport staff on the train would make themselves known to the driver to assist as required.

[splashdown]

Drivers will usually make an announcement for people who are medically trained and first aiders to make themselves known. Though they usually without request.

It is strange because I can not remember ever being trained on the use of either the stretcher or carry sheet maybe something they LUL can think about doing.

This reminds me of an incident I had. A track worker fell over and broke his leg during engineering hours. My first thought was to put him in the back of the van and drive him to casualty. However someone mentioned H&S so I had no choice but ring for an ambulance.
It was a busy night for the Ambulance service and a broken leg was not a priority. We waited 2 hours until finally deciding to stick him in the back of a van.

I think carrying people from a train is a last resort but it all depends on the situation. As long as the person making the choice can give justification then H&S is not a problem.

Many underground staff are trained in First Aid. I had a certificate for a year but did not want to do the refresher training. However that did not stop me from helping people when they needed it.

[Deleted]

We have these brand new stretchers, bright orange. Trouble is they don't fit into the old stretcher cabinets AND I'm told they need some assembly before use. Imagine the ES story, man lies dying on floor while station staff try and insert plug A into hole B. I hope they got Ikea to make the stretchers/ instructions. I can do IKEA furniture.....

[splashdown]

Oct 20, 2010 12:54:31 GMT @centralsimon said:

We have these brand new stretchers, bright orange. Trouble is they don't fit into the old stretcher cabinets AND I'm told they need some assembly before use. Imagine the ES story, man lies dying on floor while station staff try and insert plug A into hole B. I hope they got Ikea to make the stretchers/ instructions. I can do IKEA furniture.....

Now depending if you want to be a bad boy or a really bad boy you could do the following.

Option 1: Take the stretcher and try to put it together for practice.

Option 2: Inform your manager you do not know how to put the stretcher together and request training (preferably a one day course away from the station)

Option 3: Contact the LIA (Line Information Assistant) or whatever they are called now. Tell them that if there is a need for a de-trainment you will be unable to help as you have not had training on the use of the new stretchers.

Personally I would choose option one and then inform my manager that it would help if I went round all the stations training everyone. I could easily get a week away from real work.

[railtechnician]

Oct 20, 2010 8:43:21 GMT @tfc said:

Oct 19, 2010 16:37:04 GMT Ben said:

Is it not part of the procedure for detraining between stations that the driver placed the SCD onto the juice rails just to be sure?

SCDs should always be put down once traction current is discharged to prevent it from being recharged in error while the detrainment is taking place. However SCDs should not be put down on live current other than in extreme emergency because there is no guarantee they will discharge it and other problems can ensue. I seem to recall an incident on the Picc a few years ago where an SCD was put down on live track and it exploded.

I don't know the full details of what has taken place in this instance but it does sound like it was pretty dreadful for the people involved.

I do not believe it was an SCD that exploded (I am aware of many things applied to the current rails that did) but a CRID, in fact that happened more than once. However, SCDs do jump.

As far as SCDs go they are strong enough for the job from the old heavy lumps with folded wooden handles to the several generations of lightweight variety. However, applying an SCD in an emergency is not for the faint hearted. Depending upon the location trying to use one to short the live traction can be fraught with danger. Once upon a time electrical maintenance staff used to routinely use SCDs to test tripping of substation circuit breakers until one night when an SCD threw the man applying it. He made a second attempt with a colleague and the two of them could not hold it on long enough for the breakers to trip. Not long after that event that type of maintenance routine was withdrawn.

The safest way to trip the current is of course by one of the several methods of using the tunnel telephone circuit. I can see no logical reason why you as controller in an emergency could not
request the Electrical Control room Operator to apply the CB inhibitors to affected discharged sections as added insurance against accidental recharge though AFAIK they have never been used except during routine tunnel telephone maintenance.

[trainopd78]

It was down quite while before the big fireworks apparently, but it certainly looked like it exploded on the CCTV footage.

[railtechnician]

Oct 20, 2010 15:04:47 GMT trainopd78 said:

It was down quite while before the big fireworks apparently, but it certainly looked like it exploded on the CCTV footage.

Interesting, I've never heard of an SCD exploding but I guess if there's enough power to melt one then that would certainly be the visual result as it weakened much as the filament in a light bulb instantaneously pops.

As I say I have heard of all sorts of things blowing up when connected to the juice rails, it was the reason that Signals intercom sets were withdrawn. Many years ago we used to communicate between locations by using the juice rails as a speech pair (with the juice off) and magnetically connecting Eagle intercoms to them until someone put one down without checking the current was off. Shorting strips were also commonly instantly fried by 'road block' men who applied the strip to the juice rails instead of the running rails.

I presume the SCD in question had been put down with the current discharged and then left on when the section was recharged, otherwise I would expect it would've been impossible to place without fireworks in the first instance. I had not considered this in my previous post. Of course the placing of SCDs can be complicated by track parallelling which if not disconnected beforehand will inhibit the effect to some degree, another factor is distance from the substation(s).

It is of course difficult to monitor a traction circuit from the substation unless one has original data against which a comparison might be made but even then with the current drawn by trains when moving from rest and more than one train in a section even that might be tricky so I expect that detecting the presence of an SCD remotely is virtually impossible as it would be seen as just another resistance. I don't know how well the track recording voltmeters react in such circumstances, my recollection is that that give only a rough idea of the general condition of traction supply in a section but things may have advanced in the 20 years since I last looked at one.

[nickf]

I can infer from the informative posts above what an SCD does, but when I Googled the initials I found that it can stand for Strictly Come Dancing. Somehow I doubt that this is what is meant in the present context, so I have to ask: what does SCD stand for, please?

[norbitonflyer]

Oct 20, 2010 16:38:37 GMT nickf said:

I can infer from the informative posts above what an SCD does, but when I Googled the initials I found that it can stand for Strictly Come Dancing. Somehow I doubt that this is what is meant in the present context, so I have to ask: what does SCD stand for, please?

Short Circuiting Device?

[nickf]

Thanks a lot!

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2010 16:38:37 GMT nickf said:

I can infer from the informative posts above what an SCD does, but when I Googled the initials I found that it can stand for Strictly Come Dancing. Somehow I doubt that this is what is meant in the present context, so I have to ask: what does SCD stand for, please?

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