Jubilee Line cable accident

[WatcherZero]

Two trains lost power near Bond Street and another two had to be evacuated after tunnel cables fell onto trains at 11am. LU Chief Operating Officer said it was a known corrosion problem.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14935685

 

[DavyCrocket]

These are just the Tunnel Telephone wires, just thin-ish cables.
But I'm sure it wasnt too long ago that the same thing happened in the same area. Oh well, that's what you get from a 150 year old Tube... errrr....

 

[trentside]

There have been a few instances lately of tunnel telephone wires coming adrift, not just on the Jubilee line either. Not an uncommon problem, but an operational headache.

For people who don't know - the telephone wires, if pinched together, discharge traction current. They were originally a method of communicating with the various substations but this has long since been superseded by train radio.

 

[Skoodle]

They're still in use as an emergency communication tool though, on the East London Line at least Each cab contains a telephone handset that clips onto each wire.

 

[SS4]

With this morning's signal failure near Willesden Green it's not been a good day for the Jubilee line

 

[es373]

Considering the train frequency and the amount of trains that pass into the same signalling block each day, I reckon LUL do a pretty good job despite the failures.
Don't forget that there's only 4 hours per night to do maintenance on track and signals and thats a massive task!

 

[causton]

Thanks for the detail that it was the telephone wires - I read the Evening (sub)Standard and it reported it as "heavy cables" and "customers thought it was a terrorist attack" (so what? Customers also think (which I never understand) that the tracks are only live when a train comes) - and "passengers had to be walked along the tracks" (as if they'd call a taxi or something!)... grrr.

I think it can be agreed LUL have a tough situation on their hands, with millions of things to do in just a couple of hours, unless they have line closures at the weekend, in which case the newspapers moan even more...

 

[es373]

balls to the media bro. they try hard enough to shoot every ToC down. Lets see what happens if we have a MAJOR ToC-wide strike.

See the shyte bags get to work on time...

This country relies on trains more than it relies on most other things. I just laugh it off mate.

 

[DavyCrocket]

It sounds as if the evening problem was a heavier cable (I'll read up). There's many other signal, power, comms, radio and air cables on tunnel walls.

Interesting that there are reported to be known bracket corrosion faults. Also, routine switching of equipment has stopped now and will only be done when they break. Plus the word safety has been removed from the Mission Statement!

 

[es373]

Well the only other "heavy" cable that's down there are the traction cables, true?
Papers exaggerate all the time! You can be sure it was the copper tunnel phone wires lol

 

[DavyCrocket]

Connect trunk data cables and the air main are pretty chunky!

 

[es373]

Air or radiated cables wouldn't trip traction would it?
I heard they had a traction section trip