"Walter Briscoe" wrote in message
news
In message of Fri, 9 Jan
2009 03:38:34 in uk.transport.london, Steve Dulieu
writes

Thanks for a REALLY interesting posting. It would do no harm for the TfL
website to have similar reports for those few customers interested.
(Pleasedon't count this as top-posting).


"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

It took me a while to be confident that CK means Cockfosters. You use
several other two letter station codes. Where is the set publicly
available?


Not sure that there is a publicly available set, sorry...

[snip]
The T/Op went through his checks and identified the problem. He then

Presumably Train Operator or driver in normal parlance,

Correct...

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.

I presume that is a bit of track where most carriage lighting vanishes. (I
guess residual lighting comes from batteries.) Why are such gaps needed?

Correct, gaps are to allow for points, section isolation, current section
change overs...


[snip]

The SOP for this situation used to be to get a set of gap jumper leads

Standard Operating Procedure

CK.) We can reverse trains at WG, AG & OK (which is what we did).

Wood Green, Arnos Grove and Oakwood.

Correct...

The Arnos DMT drove up to CK, along with Tubelines staff from CFDT and

District Manager (Trains)? Completely Fouled Dam Trains?

Duty Manager Trains. CockFosters DepoT...

[snip]

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,

I love that summary of the customers' perspective. Was the driver able to
use announcements for customer communication during the whole of the
incident to this point.

Yes...

cleared any trains between AG and OK, knocked the juice off, SCDs down,

SCD?

Short Circuiting Device, basiclly a big metal bar with a magnet on each end
that you put across the juice rails once TC has been discharged and you want
to move about in a safe area on the track. Should TC be recharged
inadvertantly the SCD causes a circuit breaker to operate which knocks the
juice off again...

discharged TC at 17:15, deployed the jumpers, recharged at 17:20. We

Train Current? "discharged TC" = "switched track power off"?

Traction Current and correct...

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

0.6m?

Yup...

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.
Is the ability to drive a car part of your job?
Should it not be exercised formally and regularly?

The ability to drive is not actually part of the job description, I hold a
valid driving license, however I don't own a car myself. The vehicle was the
Arnos Grove incident response vehicle (a white and blue Zafiera with
flashing orange lights on the top) which all DMTs are insured to drive. At
the time of the incident I was the only person available to drive it so it
was a case of gird loins, deep breath and off we go. Any spare station staff
floating about were down at Finsbury Park for the footie at Arsenal. In
actual fact, the drive up to Cockfosters was not too bad, nice bright sunny
day and not much traffic. Getting the car back was a bit of a bugger though,
dark, bloody cold and of course I'm trying to get it out of Cockfosters car
park along with god knows how many Gooners following the match at Arsenal.

You are plainly too valuable a member of staff to risk as described.
(Not to mention elfin safety.)

You are too kind...

Could a C.S.A. (Customer Service Assistant) have been your driver?
The 40 minutes you would have had to budget to travel by 298 bus is
probably excessive. A Taxi account would probably be better.
On the other hand, I am sure stress probably affected those dealing with
the situation.

We have a Taxi account, however it would have still taken a good 30-40
minutes to get a cab so the response vehicle was the prefered option.

Disclaimer: All opininions are my own.

2 obvious questions:
1) Was there train operator error?

No...

2) Should jumper availability be reviewed? e.g. Put them in a locked
cupboard with a notice indicating the criteria for opening the cupboard.
The expected return period of such a cost (delay in powering the train)
would have to be balanced against the cost of more availability.

Well personally I think it's a spectacularly dumb idea not to have them
available, but then having spent over two hours freezing my gribblies off up
at Cockfosters on Saturday I suppose I'm biased. Had they been available the
train would have been moving in about 30 minutes rather than 167. I suspect
that cost as much as anything is behind the decision to remove them, they
require periodic testing (not cheap) and any staff using them would need
training and annual refresher training (really not cheap).

Thank you again for a REALLY interesting report.

You're most welcome...
Thanks to Boltar for THIS thread that stimulated your response.

--
Cheers, Steve.
Change jealous to sad to reply.