Channel Tunnel Problem

[gordonthemoron]

Presumably, if DB extended the Frankfurt-Brussels ICE services to London, there would be less of a requirement for Eurostars on London-Brussels as the existing ICE services seem to be used as a feeder.

Then all DB would need to do would be to start the Frankfurt services back from Munich & I could get to London without changing

 

[A60K]

How exactly is St Pancras going to accommodate trains from other operators to more destinations? Will they be able to stable trains outside the station? Generally, boarding time is longer for international services - so you can't just bring a train in, chuck passengers on it and then take the train out.

I can't wait to be able to go to other places. As airline charges will continue to rise in the coming years (by then, Ryanair will have to charge for even more things to keep their headline figures down and appear cheap - they'll probably weigh passengers) the trains will have a real cost advantage over flying even for longer distances.

From my observations, it doesn't seem that more than five platforms are required at St Pancras for the current timetabled Eurostar services. The minimum time I've seen for a train to arrive, unload and leave empty to depot at Stratford is around 25 minutes - so assume generally minimum 50-70 minute platform occupation to arrive, unload, clean and restock, load, depart, and allow a margin before reoccupation. If anyone's got more accurate hard info than my observations I would be interested in it!

There are six international platforms, so that leaves at least one available for (say) an extra DB London-Germany service running every two hours. I think the key will be, as GtM says just above, that many of the existing London-Brussels services could usefully be incorporated and extended into notional DB services.

For instance, a first Brussels train at around 0600 could easily run through to arrive at Cologne at around 1050 and Frankfurt-am-Main at around 1150, giving connections to just about anywhere in Germany, Austria or Switzerland for arrival before 2000 the same day.

 

[truckman060473]

are the eurostar trains moved by power cars at either end like a HST or are there additional traction motors in the carriages?

 

[37401]

Oh yeah dunno its been said yet but DB (the german one not EWS rebranded) are cleared for Chunnel running, ICE 3`s out of St Pancras anyone?

 

[gordonthemoron]

I'll be getting 2xICE3s from Munich to Brussels on thursday, en route to London, much more spacious than E* and TGVs (and they sell Weissbier)

 

[A60K]

are the eurostar trains moved by power cars at either end like a HST or are there additional traction motors in the carriages?

Both - the power car at each end with two powered bogies, also with the closest bogie on the adjacent passenger car being powered as well - AIUI, and simplified, a standard Class 373 set in passenger service is composed of two independent units of a power car and nine passenger cars:
DM-MTS+TS+TS+TS+TS+TBU+TF+TF+TF-TF+TF+TF+TBU+TS+TS+TS+TS+MTS-DM

DM: Driving Motor
MTS: Motor Trailer Standard
TS: Trailer Standard
TBU: Trailer Buffet
TF: Trailer First

The + symbol indicates articulated permanent coupling, the - symbol where the end of the car either side is carried on independent bogies and can uncouple in depot (and in an emergency in the tunnel).

 

[jon0844]

Another question; with a limited number of stations to call at, could the trains be lengthened in the future now that demand has increased?

What's the length of the platforms at all the stations Eurostar calls at? Do they need to be extended by much to fit another 1 or 2 carriages?

 

[A60K]

Another question; with a limited number of stations to call at, could the trains be lengthened in the future now that demand has increased?

What's the length of the platforms at all the stations Eurostar calls at? Do they need to be extended by much to fit another 1 or 2 carriages?

I'm pretty certain that at both Paris Gare du Nord and London St Pancras a Class 373 set takes up almost all of the platform length, with the country-end cab being less than a carriage length from the platform end.

Lengthening the sets I think would put the power car off the platform end, and then you've got signals and signal sightings, overlaps, track circuits and everything else to deal with - you would basically need to rebuild the station throats to allow longer trains, very difficult at both stations (at GdN the line 2 metro bridge crosses the throat).

Replacement double-deck stock is probably the only realistic way to increase the capacity of each individual train significantly. I believe there are quite a few spare paths through the tunnel and on the HS lines either though, potentially to allow four trains an hour.

 

[jopsuk]

Plus of course now the trains have no need to run on the "classic" network, a Eurostar replacement could (like the ICE3 will if DB run that through) take advantage of the more generous loading gauge, rather than being constrained as the Eurostar was. I'd guess that most of the current European HS designs should fit happily- including the Duplex?

 

[EM2]

I have to say that`s a poor analogy, because all the charging points would not fail at the same time, because of the built in flexibility of the National Grid.
Built in flexibility is just what we haven`t got here, or indeed any flexibility, built in or otherwise

OK, maybe I exaggerated about all the charging points failing at once, but it's not unlikely that in a particular area could fail. After all, power cuts over widespread areas after heavy storms are not unusual.

When British Rail was in charge and owned/operated all the trains and infrastructure, would this have happened ? And if it did, would they still be telling people they can`t travel 3 or 4 days later ?

Who knows? As I said, HS1 and the tunnel are unique in our railway network.
BR would still have had to work with SNCF and SNCB, so we have no idea what they would have done. I do know that in times of heavy snow, they often had to suspend services or run reduced timetables with unsuitable stock (e.g. no heating) for some time.
Eurostar have no other vehicles that can run through the tunnel.

I travel by train quite a bit and stand up for the railways whenever I can against uninformed views from the anti rail brigade, but this whole situation is an absolute balls up from start to finish. There are no excuses whatsoever for what happened and in particular the pathetic response to it by Eurostar. My wife and I couldn`t believe it watching on the TV as all the passengers dragged their suitcases in sub zero temperatures to the ferry terminals to stand in huge Qs. At the very least Eurostar should have organised transfer busses and arranged purchase of the ferry tickets.
I`m at a loss to understand anyone trying to defend it.
I`m pretty angry about it just imagining how I`d feel as one of the passengers.
If I actually was one I`d have probably gone into orbit by now.

We've already discussed the coaches option. It's just not feasible. And as yet, we have also demonstrated why the ideas you have come up with just will not work. AS OL Leigh has already pointed out, this is a once-in-fifteen-years occurrence. There is no way that any organisation can plan for every possible scenario. They did send some passengers via Dover, though on Saturday there were no ferries for most of the day. If they had got to Calais, they would have had further problems, as the TGV services were virtually non-existent in much of France - not that you'd know that from the British press. High-speed services from the Kent Coast ran throughout, even when the Classic routes via Maidstone and Sevenoaks were virtually closed yesterday.

I was under the impression that E* sets enter the tunnel singly or in pairs, with at least 30 mins before the next one. How on earth did they get five sets in? And what happened to the car shuttles?

E* run in 'flights' with generally three fairly close together at one time in one direction. The first flight failed in the South tunnel. The next flight of Shuttles would have been diverted into the North tunnel to get past the failed services. The next flight of Eurostars would also have been sent via the North tunnel, probably not knowing at that point that all three E* in the South tunnel had failed, only that the lead unit had failed and the others behind were waiting for it to be restarted or removed. When the next flight, now running in the North tunnel also failed, then you had both tunnels blocked.

A very good point, which leads to my main concern about the situation: is it usual practice or even advisable to let the fourth and fifth trains into the tunnel knowing that the first one is dead? I don't know what timescales were in control learning when each set failed, or what normal timings/spacings are, but was very surprised to learn there were five sets sat in the tunnel.

See above

Replacement double-deck stock is probably the only realistic way to increase the capacity of each individual train significantly. I believe there are quite a few spare paths through the tunnel and on the HS lines either though, potentially to allow four trains an hour.

There is plenty of space on HS1 and as has been mentioned elsewhere, E* can be turned round quickly. They don't at the moment because they don't have to!

 

[johnb]

I have to say that`s a poor analogy, because all the charging points would not fail at the same time, because of the built in flexibility of the National Grid.
Built in flexibility is just what we haven`t got here, or indeed any flexibility, built in or otherwise

When British Rail was in charge and owned/operated all the trains and infrastructure, would this have happened ? And if it did, would they still be telling people they can`t travel 3 or 4 days later ?

Yes. See: France, where SNCF is in charge and owns/operates all the trains and infrastructure.

I travel by train quite a bit and stand up for the railways whenever I can against uninformed views from the anti rail brigade, but this whole situation is an absolute balls up from start to finish. There are no excuses whatsoever for what happened and in particular the pathetic response to it by Eurostar. My wife and I couldn`t believe it watching on the TV as all the passengers dragged their suitcases in sub zero temperatures to the ferry terminals to stand in huge Qs. At the very least Eurostar should have organised transfer busses and arranged purchase of the ferry tickets.
I`m at a loss to understand anyone trying to defend it.
I`m pretty angry about it just imagining how I`d feel as one of the passengers.
If I actually was one I`d have probably gone into orbit by now.

If I'd been on one of the trains that got stuck, I'd've accepted the gbp150, the refund of expenses and the refund of ticket price and been happy.

If I'd been booked on one of the trains that later got cancelled for a short break, I'd've accepted the refund of expenses and the refund of ticket price, and accepted that sometimes ***** happens (and been reminded that we should be grateful to live in a world where a weekend break to another country hundreds of miles away is viewed as normal, rather than as *amazing and incredible* as it would've been in the rest of human history).

If I'd been booked on one of the trains that later got cancelled to get home for Xmas, I'd be catching a train home for Xmas about now, and that'd be fine.

Only if I was a ludicrously over-angry, over-demanding eejit would I have been even cross, never mind livid.

 

[Saltleyman]

Yes. See: France, where SNCF is in charge and owns/operates all the trains and infrastructure.

Not true I'm afraid the infrastructure on all of the railways in France(apart from some privately owned lines) is owned and maintained by a company called RFF, which is the French equivalent of Network Rail.
As to the Channel Tunnel itself it is owned and operated by Eurotunnel,who also control the Tunnel and also are the only people who control when a train is allowed into the Tunnel and how many trains are allowed in there.In the event of trouble,failures etc. they and only they are contracted to remove trains from their infrastructure and nobody else.
so the removal/evacuation of Eurostars has nothing to do with Eurostar at all.
This is the idiotic situation one gets when that "ugly" word privatisation rears its "ugly" head and the new god "profit" is allowed to run riot.

 

[jopsuk]

Yes. See: France, where SNCF is in charge and owns/operates all the trains and infrastructure.

SNCF hasn't officially owned the infrastructure since 1997- officially they're owned by a state-owned company called Réseau Ferré de France.

Yes, "Network Rail of France"...

 

[O L Leigh]

A very good point, which leads to my main concern about the situation: is it usual practice or even advisable to let the fourth and fifth trains into the tunnel knowing that the first one is dead? I don't know what timescales were in control learning when each set failed, or what normal timings/spacings are, but was very surprised to learn there were five sets sat in the tunnel.

It all depends on precisely what happened, when and how quickly it came to light that each set was a total failure.

It is very simplistic to say that one went in and failed to be followed by the next which in turn failed and so on, and that more and more trains were sent in behind an already large number of failures. It is likely that the time-line of failures was much more complex than that and that perhaps some of the sets which eventually failed did so while waiting behind one that already had.

I can say from experience that it is not a quick matter to declare a train a total failure. Notwithstanding any "cut and run" policy that puts a clock on your fault-finding, it would take a little while between the first signs of a set being unwell and it being declared a failure. For a start, an effort would need to be made in order to determine the nature and severity of the fault, together with some effort being made to rectify the faults to permit the train to be moved. With a train of the size and complexity of a Eurostar I would expect this to take quite some time to complete before the train could be declared a failure. By the time this has all been done, you're going to get a queue of waiting trains forming behind you, one of which the controllers would be hoping to use to assist the failure clear of the pipe. The nature of the failures would still need to be properly understood in order to know what assistance procedure would be appropriate. All of this takes time.

O L Leigh

 

[johnb]

Yes, I know about RFF. It has less than a thousand employees, of whom none are engineers, and contracts all its operations to, erm, SNCF. If you believe the railway infrastructure in France isn't maintained and controlled by SNCF de facto, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

Anyone who thinks the Eurotunnel/HS1/LGV Nord/Eurostar setup has *anything* to do with privatisation is a blimmin' moron. It's three different countries' trains on three different countries' networks, plus a bit in the middle that's part of neither and needs to be operated seperately. All the same complications would be in place (ie E*, ET and the national railway operators being seperate companies) if there were no private sector involvement at all.

 

[gordonthemoron]

and DB Netz has nothing to do with Deutsche Bahn

 

[Justin Smith]

Only if I was a ludicrously over-angry, over-demanding eejit would I have been even cross, never mind livid.

There are two possibilities here.

1 You must be an extermely laid back chap who has no commitments or responsibilities in life. You`re also the kind of customer that any business must pray for.

2 You`re joking.


--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
If the same company owned all the rolling stock and the tunnel, I suspect that there could have been a more robust response to the situation.
for instance, the Shuttles aren`t run by Eurostar, so how motivated would they have been to pull out all the stops to run extra services and possibly cause some disruption to its own "customers" (in conjunction with Eurostar`s getting the passengers to Folkstone) ? I accept here that we`re assuming that Eurostar would actually get it`s a**e in gear and organise getting them to Folkstone for the passengers who needed to travel.

I cannot believe that BR, or the Big Four before them, would have just cancelled everything and not laid on any sort of alternative service, even if it did need to use some imagination and lateral thinking.
Mind you we are talking about the same system that just cancels all services and puts passengers on busses at the drop of a hat, so perhaps we shouldn`t be too surprised at what actually happened.

 

[Vulcan]

Mind you we are talking about the same system that just cancels all services and puts passengers on busses at the drop of a hat, so perhaps we shouldn`t be too surprised at what actually happened.

Bus rail replacement services arn't laid on 'at the drop of a hat' just for fun, they are often planned way in advance to cover for when there is vital engineering work to be done. That said, i'm sure there are some cases where they could reduce it to single line working while they work on the other line.

Also, it seems a bit unfair to blame eurostar for bus links of the past, when they themselves (As far as I remember) have never put on a bus link in their 15 year history.

 

[jon0844]

With the road conditions as they were in France and Kent, I am guessing that tens of coaches running wouldn't have been a great solution. Who would want to be trapped and stranded by the roadside instead of the relative luxury of St Pancras or Gare de Nord?

 

[johnb]

There are two possibilities here.

1 You must be an extermely laid back chap who has no commitments or responsibilities in life. You`re also the kind of customer that any business must pray for.

2 You`re joking.

Eh? I'm moderately laid-back I guess, but of course I've got commitments - I just choose not to work for, or be friends with, people who'd be upset if I failed to meet them because I was stuck in a train breakdown that wasn't my fault (rather than because I was drunk or still in bed, say...).

And as I said, I'd've been happy *given* the compo, expenses and refund - obviously if they'd failed to get me anywhere and not given me my money back, then I'd've been cross.

If the same company owned all the rolling stock and the tunnel, I suspect that there could have been a more robust response to the situation.
for instance, the Shuttles aren`t run by Eurostar, so how motivated would they have been to pull out all the stops to run extra services and possibly cause some disruption to its own "customers" (in conjunction with Eurostar`s getting the passengers to Folkstone) ? I accept here that we`re assuming that Eurostar would actually get it`s a**e in gear and organise getting them to Folkstone for the passengers who needed to travel.

I cannot believe that BR, or the Big Four before them, would have just cancelled everything and not laid on any sort of alternative service, even if it did need to use some imagination and lateral thinking.
Mind you we are talking about the same system that just cancels all services and puts passengers on busses at the drop of a hat, so perhaps we shouldn`t be too surprised at what actually happened.

Err, who exactly do you think the single company that owned the trains and all the infrastructure should've been? I can see a few logistical difficulties behind a merger between BR and SNCF...

 

[paul1609]

With the road conditions as they were in France and Kent, I am guessing that tens of coaches running wouldn't have been a great solution. Who would want to be trapped and stranded by the roadside instead of the relative luxury of St Pancras or Gare de Nord?

Not true I'm afraid. Apart from the 17 mile southbound jam because the Channel Tunnel was closed the M20 was running normally on Friday Evening and Saturday. There was very little snow in the Folkestone area. The main problems were in the Dover Area and on the M2 near Chatham.

 

[dk1]

What a pity Eurostar didnt have Mary Walsh on tv/radio as their spokesperson a few days ago instead of Richard Brown & co. She came over very well & actually sounds sorry. I didnt think the others did the company any favours at all.

 

[jon0844]

Wasn't it Mary Walsh that was smirking when apologising as if it wasn't a big deal when it first happened?

When it wasn't all sorted, it was left to others to apologise.

 

[dk1]

Wasn't it Mary Walsh that was smirking when apologising as if it wasn't a big deal when it first happened?

When it wasn't all sorted, it was left to others to apologise.

May have been i didnt see that. Its just i have found those speaking on behalf of the company the last few days pretty awful. She came over quite human today. Did like it when the media keeps trying to get angry reactions from passengers without success. When asking will you travel Euroster ever again it seems a resounding YES!

 

[gordonthemoron]

Eurostar 11.29 Brussel Midi to London St Pancras Thursday 24.12.09. Will be on my way in a few hours.

 

[Justin Smith]

Bus rail replacement services arn't laid on 'at the drop of a hat' just for fun, they are often planned way in advance to cover for when there is vital engineering work to be done. That said, i'm sure there are some cases where they could reduce it to single line working while they work on the other line.

Also, it seems a bit unfair to blame eurostar for bus links of the past, when they themselves (As far as I remember) have never put on a bus link in their 15 year history.

I think it`s fairly well accepted that BR didn`t put anywhere on near as many replacement bus services as the privatised TOCs. They were far more likely to put in diversions, I know that because I used to like catching them on sections of line I hadn`t travelled on before.
Whether Eurostar have or haven`t put on replacement bus services in the past, I was trying to establish the principle that Train Companies these days are more likely to cancel services. Maybe because it`s because they`re smaller than BR and therefore have less scope for swapping rolling stock about to cover emergencies.
The ironic thing is that if Eurostar were more experienced at putting on replacement busses they might have been more efficient at doing it last weekend !

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Eh? I'm moderately laid-back I guess, but of course I've got commitments - I just choose not to work for, or be friends with, people who'd be upset if I failed to meet them because I was stuck in a train breakdown that wasn't my fault (rather than because I was drunk or still in bed, say...).

And as I said, I'd've been happy *given* the compo, expenses and refund - obviously if they'd failed to get me anywhere and not given me my money back, then I'd've been cross.

I take it you`d have been a bit cross at being left in a train under the Channel for 10 hours !
The thing about Eurostars offer is that, as far as I know, it wasn`t made immediately to all those waiting at St Pancras and Paris/Brussels.
I dare say some people would be happy to accept the compensation, and good luck to them, but many people were more desperate to get to their destination. I`m simply saying more should have been done for them.

 

[Old Timer]

I think it`s fairly well accepted that BR didn`t put anywhere near as many replacement bus services as the privatised TOCs. They were far more likely to put in diversions, I know that because I used to like catching them on sections of line I hadn`t travelled on before................ I was trying to establish the principle that Train Compnies these days are more likely to cancel services. Maybe because it`s because they`re smaller than BR and therefore have less scope for swapping rolling stock about to cover emergencies.

DfT/ORR performance targets and the Passengers Charter penalties mean that a TOC will not willingly try to run an existing service with buses, but will terminate short and substitute with special services which are outwith these. Similar constraints apply to Network Rail.

The contrary applied to BR until the later stages.

Any TOC that seeks to run for the benefit of passengers will soon find that they are unsuccessful in any re-franchise because all the Government are concerned about are "targets" to get them off the hook Politically, and to extract the maximum amount of money from the TOCs.

Train performance is such a blunt tool, that it has been responsible for the waste of millions of £s on Infrastructure work.

 

[Justin Smith]

I just choose not to work for people who'd be upset if I failed to meet them because I was stuck in a train breakdown that wasn't my fault.

There`s an interesting sidelight to this. When I was an employee I thought it`d be great to be the boss with no preasure on you to get to work on time. The thing is that once you do become the boss, assuming you`re reasonably conscientious, you actually feel under even more preasure to get to work on time so you can be seen to set an example.
Things are seldom how they appear......

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

DfT/ORR performance targets and the Passengers Charter penalties mean that a TOC will not willingly try to run an existing service with buses, but will terminate short and substitute with special services which are outwith these. Similar constraints apply to Network Rail.

The contrary applied to BR until the later stages.

Any TOC that seeks to run for the benefit of passengers will soon find that they are unsuccessful in any re-franchise because all the Government are concerned about are "targets" to get them off the hook Politically, and to extract the maximum amount of money from the TOCs.

Train performance is such a blunt tool, that it has been responsible for the waste of millions of £s on Infrastructure work.

Do these penalties apply at weekends ?

 

[Micky Redmire]

You're welcome. And no, it wasn't a copy and paste.

The weak point in both the current arrangements and your own suggested alternatives is that the power supply has to come into the train somewhere. The current arrangement of a single pan and VCB, and a transformer to supply all the train's needs works perfectly well under normal circumstances to the extent that the penalties in terms of weight and operational costs of having to carry a second pan, VCB and transformer would be prohibitive for the number of times when such a degree of redundancy would be required.

As it is, the Eurostar is effectively two EMU's working in multiple rather than a single train, with duplicate power and traction equipment at each end. The idea is that if one half-set fails the other can still pull/push it out. For a Eurostar to be declared a total failure suggests that each half-set must have suffered the same or a similar catastrophic failure. So in effect we're not talking about 5 failed sets but 10 or more separate failures (no report has been made on whether or not there were any partial failures where just one of the two half-sets failed).

But this is all by the by. The point I'm making is that each Eurostar set already has a certain degree of redundancy built-in. I am given to understand that each Eurostar half-set can supply power for on-train services to it's partner should the other fail to do so. However, it cannot supply power for the traction equipment of it's partner as the Channel Tunnel safety rules do not permit a high voltage "bus".

Those sets that were plunged into darkness would appear to have suffered a far more fundamental failure. Again I will just remind you that I am not familiar with the Eurostar sets, but on the older traction I drive this sort of thing would be a good sign that the back-up auxilliaries had tripped.

When the auxilliaries trip out you are left with a totally dead train. All the back-up power for the emergency lights, radios and all the control circuits are dead and, if you cannot reset them, you are a dead duck. Everything else that you can try in order to get the train moving assumes that you have power for control, and that means auxilliaries. It also means that you have no way of getting power down from the overheads for any of the on-train systems. It can also make assistance from another train tricky as this is the sort of fault that has the potential to be transferred to the assisting train, and when that happens you're in for all sorts of fun and games.

As for the speculation about whether or not the snow screens had been fitted, I can't believe that they weren't. Even if Eurostar were running to a schedule that wouldn't have seen the last set "winterised" until later in the month, everyone knew that snow was forecast in plenty of time. The work could have been carried out seperately from the exam to make sure that all sets had their screens fitted prior to the forecast snow arriving. However, I will just say that all talk on this matter is currently boundless speculation. We just don't yet know what was or wasn't done by Eurostar and we won't until the investigations are complete.

**EDIT**

Just an additional point about allowing another train into the tunnel when one set had already failed. This is not unusual practice, as one Eurostar set can assist another when it fails.

O L Leigh

Thanks for the technical insight, there is clearly relevant information that is not in the public domain.

Unless the cooling circuit ducts have a common inlet point for all motors on each half-set, it's difficult to envisage a scenario where all motors are functioning correctly 10 minutes prior to entering the tunnel and then sufficient fail to disable the train. In addition to this, a similar scenario would also have to afflict the other half-set for trains 1 and 5 (trains 2, 3 and 4 could be semi-operational but trapped by 1 and 5)

The design risk assessment for failure of both half-sets probably indicates rescue by another locomotive within x hours, where x is low (2?)

If the health and safety of trapped passengers was compromised during the entrapment, then a revised risk assessment may indicate that maintenance of life safety systems shall occur when both VCBs have disconnected. This could involve a third pantograph for use solely for life safety, to be designed for use at speeds up to 30 mph (?) ie maximum emergency recovery speed. This would only be required for use in the tunnel, assuming that recovery outside the tunnel can be arranged efficiently.

From the information available, if O2 was being depleted and CO2 levels were increasing i.e. "don't breathe too deeply" then - clearly - there was a substantial risk to passengers. Entrapment in confined conditions for long periods is demonstrably survivable for those with the correct training, primarily military, but the general public cannot be expected to react in a similar manner.

There are two scenarios which are a better fit to the available information:
1) Failure of the supply, this explains why it was not possible to move recovery Eurostars or any electric locomotive into the tunnel at an early stage to rescue trains 1 and 5.
2) Other, where other involves a conspiracy theory. But I'm sure that would have leaked out by now .... probably.

Several options available for the maintenance of life safety systems in the event of failure of the traction systems (including disconnection of both VCBs), multi-voltage overhead line being one. Drop primary pantographs, disconnect 25kV, connect a lower voltage supply (reduced complexity switching gear on the set, steps neatly round verboten 25kV onboard bus), raise one off life safety pantograph per set, probably limited by current carrying capacity of overhead line but we can have reduced lighting and cycled ventilation.

Of course, where there's AC there is the opportunity for induction, but my preference would be for a separate cable system in the tunnel with connection points available to sustain life safety systems for "dead" stationary trains, this would also enable survivability if general catastrophic mechanical failure of the overhead lines occurred.

All fixable, just needs a bit a money thrown at it.. and if there was genuine risk to life then better get the cheque ready now. A repeat situation with fatalities doesn't bear thinking about.

Regarding "It's run for 15 years without a serious problem", North Sea ferries used to routinely leave harbour with the bow visor up, it wasn't a problem for many years ..

I've had no response to my FOI request to Network Rail ... do you think they are ignoring me??..

 

[StewieG]

You're welcome. And no, it wasn't a copy and paste.

The weak point in both the current arrangements and your own suggested alternatives is that the power supply has to come into the train somewhere. The current arrangement of a single pan and VCB, and a transformer to supply all the train's needs works perfectly well under normal circumstances to the extent that the penalties in terms of weight and operational costs of having to carry a second pan, VCB and transformer would be prohibitive for the number of times when such a degree of redundancy would be required.

As it is, the Eurostar is effectively two EMU's working in multiple rather than a single train, with duplicate power and traction equipment at each end. The idea is that if one half-set fails the other can still pull/push it out. For a Eurostar to be declared a total failure suggests that each half-set must have suffered the same or a similar catastrophic failure. So in effect we're not talking about 5 failed sets but 10 or more separate failures (no report has been made on whether or not there were any partial failures where just one of the two half-sets failed).

But this is all by the by. The point I'm making is that each Eurostar set already has a certain degree of redundancy built-in. I am given to understand that each Eurostar half-set can supply power for on-train services to it's partner should the other fail to do so. However, it cannot supply power for the traction equipment of it's partner as the Channel Tunnel safety rules do not permit a high voltage "bus".

Those sets that were plunged into darkness would appear to have suffered a far more fundamental failure. Again I will just remind you that I am not familiar with the Eurostar sets, but on the older traction I drive this sort of thing would be a good sign that the back-up auxilliaries had tripped.

When the auxilliaries trip out you are left with a totally dead train. All the back-up power for the emergency lights, radios and all the control circuits are dead and, if you cannot reset them, you are a dead duck. Everything else that you can try in order to get the train moving assumes that you have power for control, and that means auxilliaries. It also means that you have no way of getting power down from the overheads for any of the on-train systems. It can also make assistance from another train tricky as this is the sort of fault that has the potential to be transferred to the assisting train, and when that happens you're in for all sorts of fun and games.

As for the speculation about whether or not the snow screens had been fitted, I can't believe that they weren't. Even if Eurostar were running to a schedule that wouldn't have seen the last set "winterised" until later in the month, everyone knew that snow was forecast in plenty of time. The work could have been carried out seperately from the exam to make sure that all sets had their screens fitted prior to the forecast snow arriving. However, I will just say that all talk on this matter is currently boundless speculation. We just don't yet know what was or wasn't done by Eurostar and we won't until the investigations are complete.

**EDIT**

Just an additional point about allowing another train into the tunnel when one set had already failed. This is not unusual practice, as one Eurostar set can assist another when it fails.

O L Leigh

I'm sure there was something about that they had the snow guards on, to stop the condensation from getting into the Eurostar Grills, but because of the extreme cold and snow - they malfunctioned? As they had only been in use for said period of time, and in that time - temperatures hadn't been as bad as this.