On 13 Aug, 22:17, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 13 Aug 2010, Paul Terry wrote:
In message Zag9o.3685$7E.1580@hurricane, "
writes

Would not the deadman feature on the controller have prevented this?
Indeed, this is one of the reasons that it exists.

If somebody tried to override the deadman and then left it, then I imagine
that this individual is in serious trouble.

Even if a deadman's handle exists on engineering trains (and I'm not
sure it does, as they are not passenger-carrying vehicles), it would
have been of no use here as the train was not drawing power (it was
being towed by another train before the coupling broke).

At which point Mr Westinghouse's ingenious air-brake would have come into
operation, had it been fitted. The whole point of railway brakes is that
they're fail-safe: if at any point they are not connected to an alert
operator, whether because they have become disconnected, or the operator
is no longer alert, they apply. This evidently did not happen here, which
is alarming. I will be very interested to find out why.

This also raises the point that the line controllers don't have any way of
stopping a runaway train. I wouldn't expect anything radical, but some
sort of big rubber boot you could jam on to the side of a passing train to
stop it, or a bargepole or something, would seem like a sensible
investment for stations on slopes.

Couldn't they have got someone (perhaps played by Clint Eastwood in
the film version) to stand in the trench at Mornington Crescent and
shoot out the tyres of the oncoming train?

MIG wrote:
On 13 Aug, 22:17, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 13 Aug 2010, Paul Terry wrote:
In message Zag9o.3685$7E.1580@hurricane, "
writes
Would not the deadman feature on the controller have prevented this?
Indeed, this is one of the reasons that it exists.
If somebody tried to override the deadman and then left it, then I imagine
that this individual is in serious trouble.
Even if a deadman's handle exists on engineering trains (and I'm not
sure it does, as they are not passenger-carrying vehicles), it would
have been of no use here as the train was not drawing power (it was
being towed by another train before the coupling broke).
At which point Mr Westinghouse's ingenious air-brake would have come into
operation, had it been fitted. The whole point of railway brakes is that
they're fail-safe: if at any point they are not connected to an alert
operator, whether because they have become disconnected, or the operator
is no longer alert, they apply. This evidently did not happen here, which
is alarming. I will be very interested to find out why.

This also raises the point that the line controllers don't have any way of
stopping a runaway train. I wouldn't expect anything radical, but some
sort of big rubber boot you could jam on to the side of a passing train to
stop it, or a bargepole or something, would seem like a sensible
investment for stations on slopes.

Couldn't they have got someone (perhaps played by Clint Eastwood in
the film version) to stand in the trench at Mornington Crescent and
shoot out the tyres of the oncoming train?

Or used a stinger.

--
Tony Dragon

In message , at 23:12:39 on
Fri, 13 Aug 2010, Neil Williams
remarked:
I saw a rather different odd thing last time I was in Paris ... an
engineering train proceeding wrong-track through the opposite platform
to the one I was on (at about 8am). I crossed my fingers that my train
would not be delayed, and wondered what happened next. Presumably it
crossed over to the tracks my side and made its escape. Funny thing was,
trains were supposed to be passing on both tracks about every three
minutes.

It's not unknown for platforms 13 and 14 at Manc Picc to end up
getting swapped over in normal operation. It's a bit more intricate
to swap them back, though.

My train arrived correct-track as expected.
--
Roland Perry

On Aug 13, 12:00*pm, Mizter T wrote:
On Aug 13, 11:23*am, Paul wrote:

Sounds like a serious screw up, thankfully no-one got hurt. RAIB will
of course be involved.

The RAIB have announced their investigation, with some preliminary
details and a picture of the unit involved:
http://www.raib.gov.uk/publications/...te_runaway.cfm

Something that I don't think had previously been released:
The crew of the grinding unit, who had no means of re-applying the
brake, jumped off the unit as it passed through Highgate station.

In message
,
martin writes
Something that I don't think had previously been released:
The crew of the grinding unit, who had no means of re-applying the
brake, jumped off the unit as it passed through Highgate station.

That sounds a bit like the Rovos rail runaway near Pretoria on 21st
April, where (some reports say) the crew encouraged passengers aboard to
jump out, presumably while the speed was still modest. Sadly 3 people
were killed and many injured, and 15 out of 19 carriages were damaged
beyond repair. I find it even more extraordinary that on a long
passenger train there was no way of applying the brakes from on board:
on older stock on BR I seem to remember that if you pulled the
communication cord it opened a hole in the brake pipe at the end of the
carriage, which was robust, simple and effective under practically all
circumstances.

I don't know what happens on modern stock but it looks to me as if
pushing the emergency button merely sounds an alarm in the drivers cab,
which is by no means as satisfactory.

--
Clive Page

In message
, at
03:20:43 on Wed, 18 Aug 2010, martin
remarked:
Something that I don't think had previously been released:
The crew of the grinding unit, who had no means of re-applying the
brake, jumped off the unit as it passed through Highgate station.

The "jumping off" was known, but not the bit about the brake.
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Clive Page)
wrote:

In message
,
martin writes
Something that I don't think had previously been released:
The crew of the grinding unit, who had no means of re-applying
the
brake, jumped off the unit as it passed through Highgate station.

That sounds a bit like the Rovos rail runaway near Pretoria on 21st
April, where (some reports say) the crew encouraged passengers
aboard to jump out, presumably while the speed was still modest.
Sadly 3 people were killed and many injured, and 15 out of 19
carriages were damaged beyond repair. I find it even more
extraordinary that on a long passenger train there was no way of
applying the brakes from on board: on older stock on BR I seem to
remember that if you pulled the communication cord it opened a hole
in the brake pipe at the end of the carriage, which was robust,
simple and effective under practically all circumstances.

The communication cord wouldn't work if the brakes had been isolated as
appears to have happened in this case.

I don't know what happens on modern stock but it looks to me as if
pushing the emergency button merely sounds an alarm in the drivers
cab, which is by no means as satisfactory.

The trouble in this case looks to be that the brake on the railgrinder had
to be isolated because it could not be controlled from the 95TS train.
That makes me wonder why they didn't attempt the rescue with a battery
loco or something else with compatible braking equipment.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 08:00:08
on Wed, 18 Aug 2010, remarked:

That makes me wonder why they didn't attempt the rescue with a battery
loco or something else with compatible braking equipment.

Where would the nearest battery loco be at that time of day, and would
there be anything between it and the train needing to be rescued (for
example, some service trains).
--
Roland Perry

On 18/08/2010 12:03, Clive Page wrote:
In message
,
martin writes
Something that I don't think had previously been released:
The crew of the grinding unit, who had no means of re-applying the
brake, jumped off the unit as it passed through Highgate station.

That sounds a bit like the Rovos rail runaway near Pretoria on 21st
April, where (some reports say) the crew encouraged passengers aboard to
jump out, presumably while the speed was still modest. Sadly 3 people
were killed and many injured, and 15 out of 19 carriages were damaged
beyond repair. I find it even more extraordinary that on a long
passenger train there was no way of applying the brakes from on board:
on older stock on BR I seem to remember that if you pulled the
communication cord it opened a hole in the brake pipe at the end of the
carriage, which was robust, simple and effective under practically all
circumstances.

I don't know what happens on modern stock but it looks to me as if
pushing the emergency button merely sounds an alarm in the drivers cab,
which is by no means as satisfactory.

The thinking behind that is that if you pull the cord in the tunnel, and
stop the tunnel, than it would be more difficult to get to somebody who
is in need of assistance. You also don't want to pull the cord if there
is a fire, for example, which would possibly customers at even greater risk.

I wonder if they will look into installing any track mechanisms that
might stop or at least substantially slow down a runaway train.