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London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

metro.co.uk

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Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#21

Post by setgree »

RDaneel0livaw wrote: post #18
michaelt wrote: post #2

> Some frustrated travellers even smashed their way out the cold, dark trains and walked down the tracks to escape after getting stuck for more than three hours. It's a shame train operators don't feel able to make the common sense decision to give the passengers the option to walk before the three hour mark, without requiring them to "smash their way out". Obviously, some passengers won't be able to make the trek, a…

I'm frankly astonished it took people 3 hrs to smash the windows and get out. I'd have politely asked the operator to open it up and let us all out after the 1h mark and if they didn't I would smash the shit out of a window and crawl out. No chance I would sit in there for 3 hours.

Are you British though…

Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#22

Post by MichaelZuo »

YawningAngel wrote: post #3
michaelt wrote: post #2

> Some frustrated travellers even smashed their way out the cold, dark trains and walked down the tracks to escape after getting stuck for more than three hours. It's a shame train operators don't feel able to make the common sense decision to give the passengers the option to walk before the three hour mark, without requiring them to "smash their way out". Obviously, some passengers won't be able to make the trek, a…

I was in a similar situation on a London train (different line) this month. The problem is that the operators genuinely do not know how long things are going to take. I agree that the TTR is obviously unacceptable, but the whole service is run on a shoestring budget and is constantly cancelled or late, so there isn't really the capital available to do better.

Transport for London has a budget of over 10 billion pounds, how is that a 'shoestring budget'?

Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#24

Post by Cyphase »

Off topic, but the phrasing of the headline[0] caught my attention. Shouldn't it be, "Thousands stranded in dark for hours as London trains see power cut"? Is this not as clear cut as I'm thinking? Maybe it's a British English thing?

[0] In case it changes for any reason, it's currently, "London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours".

Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#25

Post by seabass-labrax »

I think there's some rather below-the-belt plagiarism going on here:

Metro:

  The rush hour service lurched to a stop last night and left passengers onboard the crowded carriages for hours, as the driver drip-fed what little information they had to passengers.
  
  Eventually, the battery backup running the heating and lighting ran out, and those on board were left in darkness for another hour and a half until the evacuation came.
BBC:

  Commuter Mikey Worrall described the train as "lurching to a stop" and then a long, several-hour wait in semi-darkness as the driver drip-fed what little information they had through to passengers.
  
  Eventually, the battery back-up running the train's heating and light services ran out, and passengers were left in darkness for another hour and a half until they were evacuated from the train.

Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#26

Post by rad_gruchalski »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #25

I think there's some rather below-the-belt plagiarism going on here: Metro: The rush hour service lurched to a stop last night and left passengers onboard the crowded carriages for hours, as the driver drip-fed what little information they had to passengers. Eventually, the battery backup running the heating and lighting ran out, and those on board were left in darkness for another hour and a half until the evacuatio…

Or a reprint of an official statement.

Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#27

Post by vkou »

bombcar wrote: post #4
YawningAngel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a similar situation on a London train (different line) this month. The problem is that the operators genuinely do not know how long things are going to take. I agree that the TTR is obviously unacceptable, but the whole service is run on a shoestring budget and is constantly cancelled or late, so there isn't really the capital available to do better.

When you have a situation like this you run a worst case scenario and put in effect immediately. Whether that is telling passengers that busses will be there in two hours or whatever, you work it out. If something like this happens in a winter storm, it can become deadly.

If we approached life with a worst-case scenario mindset, I wouldn't leave my house without first putting on full body armor with steel plate inserts, and a bomb-squad helmet.

Most of the time, it's not going to be a 3-hour stop, and anyone trying to walk the tracks is likely to create a safety problem for themselves and other trains.

At the time of the stop, if nobody knows how bad the outage is likely to be, there is no point in time when making the call to have the passengers all walk out is the right thing to do.

Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#28

Post by vkou »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #13
midasuni wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So people walk out after a 10 minute outage, then it’s fixed, but you can’t turn power on because a few people have decided to go for a stroll?

Hence the different protocols needed for a 10 minute outage and a 3 hour outage.

You can't tell at the 10 minute mark whether or not power will be back in 10 more minutes, or in 3 hours.

Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#29

Post by dheera »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #25

I think there's some rather below-the-belt plagiarism going on here: Metro: The rush hour service lurched to a stop last night and left passengers onboard the crowded carriages for hours, as the driver drip-fed what little information they had to passengers. Eventually, the battery backup running the heating and lighting ran out, and those on board were left in darkness for another hour and a half until the evacuatio…

Meh. It's a factual article about an unfortunate event, there isn't much room for creativity here, and everyone is piecing together the facts from information shared with each other.

I'd rather the reporting about things like this spread as fast as possible rather than wordsmiths spending pointless hours figuring out how to reword the same fact to sound "original".

If it was a creative piece or a documentary I'd agree with you, but this is just a dumping of facts.

Re: London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

#30

Post by nicoburns »

yabones wrote: post #17
rsynnott wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London trains are mostly third rail powered rather than overhead line, right? You really don't want people walking on one of those. Like, you don't want people walking on any train line, but particularly not one with a third rail.

The old-style "tube" trains are all DC third rail IIRC, but the newer trainsets such as the Elizabeth and Thameslink are all overhead AC. So this would actually be one of the few metro trains where it would be remotely safe to walk the tracks provided all the trains were stopped...

The Elizabeth line also has an actual walkway for emergency (and presumably also maintenance) purposes.
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