"John B" wrote in message
...
On Jan 6, 1:52 pm, wrote:
1) the depot is at Cockfosters. Not sure what time this incident took
place, but if the train died in a place where it blocked or

MId to late afternoon.

Right boys n' girls, this is what happened...

(I have simplified this a bit but it's still gonna' be long)

At about 14:53 a train departed CK platform 4, as it got out of the platform
it became rear-tripped, coming to a halt with the rear of the train about 2
metres out of the platform.

The T/Op went through his checks and identified the problem. He then set
about getting the train moving.

Sadly this is when it went all man-boobs up.

The train had come to a stand on the one bit of track leaving CK where it
was completely off juice (gapped in LU jargon) AND where the train will not
roll - in either direction.

Because the train was gapped the compressors were not working, and with the
rear trip being operated (air escaping from the pressure switch) and several
attempts to get the brakes to release, the available air on the train
dropped below 3 bar at which point the train was not going to move no matter
what unless it got back onto traction current.

The SOP for this situation used to be to get a set of gap jumper leads
(basically a 640 volt extension lead, with a plug to go into the side of the
train on one end and a pair of shoes to go onto an adjacent possie and
neggie rail on the other) that were stored locally to where trains could be
gapped. Sadly LU's reading of the electricity at work act coupled with the
current elf n' safety fetish has meant that gap jumpers have been deemed to
be a BAD THING and have been removed from the majority of sites where we
used to have them just in case someone who doesn't know what their doing
tries to play with them.

So, we've got a train sitting just outside CK preventing any other train
going west from CK. We can get eastbound trains into P1 and P2/3 but the
only place they can go after that is into the depot. (Which is what we did
with the 3 trains that were stuck in section between OK & CK.) We can
reverse trains at WG, AG & OK (which is what we did).

The Arnos DMT drove up to CK, along with Tubelines staff from CFDT and
station staff, but despite our best efforts we were unable to move the
train.

The ERU (Emergency Response Unit) had also been summoned and they were
diverted to fetch the one set of gap jumpers known to be available.

These were at Golders Green, the ERU were coming from Vauxhall so we ain't
talking instant response here.

Whilst this was going on, the customers on the stalled train expressed a
desire to get off and continue their journey by other means, which, given
that they had now been sitting there for 45 minutes was not unreasonable. So
we got everyone into the car closest to the platform, cleared any trains
between AG and OK, knocked the juice off, SCDs down, out with the train's
detrainment ladder, walked the 15 customers off the train and onto CK
platform, SCDs up, detrainment ladder back up and juice back on. The juice
was off from 16:04 to 16:10. The current section runs from Cockfosters to
Southgate, so we lost the OK reversing facility whilst the detrainment took
place. This translated into about a 20 minute period that we had no trains
running between AG and OK. Up until the detrainment we had been reversing at
the 3 sites available to us. Once the detrainment had been completed we
resumed OK reversing whilst we waited for the ERU to turn up with our jump
leads.

The ERU arrived on site at 17:05, we got the jump leads to the train. At
this point we had to again get some trains out of section and so discharged
TC at 17:15, deployed the jumpers, recharged at 17:20. We then had to let
the air on the train build up, moved the train forward the 2 feet required
to get it back on juice, knocked the juice back off at 17:30, removed the
jumpers, juice back on at 17:35, train on the move at 17:36, delay 167
minutes.

Whilst all this was going on, a track failure at Wood Green meant that we
lost the WG reversing facility from about 16:30 onwards.

The various discharges of traction current meant that we were not able to
reverse at Oakwood from about 16:00 to 16:20 and from 17:10 to 17:40.

So, Mr. B, I'm sorry that for you "Normal Crap Service" was resumed, we
didn't do it deliberately and believe it or not some of us do care. If you
want to get a chuckle out of the whole sorry saga, when I said that the
Arnos DMT drove to CK, that man was me, only problem is I had not driven a
car since 1990, so you can comfort yourself with thought that at least one
of the bone idle useless layabouts who work for LU was actually sh*tting
himself.

Disclaimer: All opininions are my own.
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change jealous to sad to reply.