Failure in power lines leaves hundreds trapped on trains.

[tara 10]

Apparently hundreds of people were trapped on trains last night because of a failure in power lines, including a G.N.E.R train travelling from Newcastle to Kings cross, whose passengers were trapped for two hours with temperatures soaring to 120f.

People were fainting , and pulling the emergency cord repeatedly.

The people were not allowed off the train as the staff feared it would be unsafe.

There was no air conditioning and no doors or windows open.

 

After nearly 2 hours in stiffling heat, the passengers were forced to smash windows. A woman having a panic attack eventually grabbed the emergency hammer and broke through a window.

 

 

They ran out of water in the buffet comp. and in the end were giving everthing away free. People were even seen with bottles of champagne , just to get some liquid in to them .

 

The staff eventually started opening doors as people were forcing emergency doors open themselves.

 

The people were let off the train finally after 2 hours.

 

 

There were at least two other trains involved - mainline trains.

[Apollo_C 10]

Surely Champagne would further dehydrate them in the longer term...?!?

[Captain_Scarlet 10]

Sounds inconcequential to the Swiss power loss, which the ENTIRE country's rail network at a stand still.

 

The best rail system in the world suddently went in last place.

Trains are only slowly getting back to normal after 3 days.

 

Funny how the BBc didn't say owt bout that, but prolly slagged gNEr down as usual.

Actually it did, and it's here:

 

BBC's rubbish reporting as usual

[scottf 21]

Originally posted by Apollo_C

Surely Champagne would further dehydrate them in the longer term...?!?

 

true but by that point you wouldn't care :D

[Apollo_C 10]

Originally posted by scottf

true but by that point you wouldn't care :D

 

By that Point? I'd already be supping before then!!!

[spiffymonkey 10]

Originally posted by tara

The people were not allowed off the train as the staff feared it would be unsafe.

 

Why would it be unsafe? There would hardly be any trains coming, if the power was off

 

The people were let off the train finally after 2 hours.

 

From the description of events it sounded like they were in there all night, but it was only 2 hours! 120 fahrenheit is unpleasant and can't be tolerated for long, but considering that all would have taken to cool off was opening the doors and telling people to get clear of the tracks, resorting to smashing windows and looting the buffet car seems a little extreme

[Captain_Scarlet 10]

Originally posted by spiffymonkey

Why would it be unsafe? There would hardly be any trains coming, if the power was off

It's HSe crap, don't let your passenger son the line, thezy could trip and sue you or sommut.

Originally posted by spiffymonkey

From the description of events it sounded like they were in there all night, but it was only 2 hours! 120 fahrenheit is unpleasant and can't be tolerated for long, but considering that all would have taken to cool off was opening the doors and telling people to get clear of the tracks, resorting to smashing windows and looting the buffet car seems a little extreme

This accident brings to light an important issue, coaches tend to no longer have openable window, it's an enclosed almost pressurised Air Conned space... Not the most confortable when there's no power or indeed, even when there is.

[StarSparkle 10]

Originally posted by spiffymonkey

From the description of events it sounded like they were in there all night, but it was only 2 hours! 120 fahrenheit is unpleasant and can't be tolerated for long, but considering that all would have taken to cool off was opening the doors and telling people to get clear of the tracks, resorting to smashing windows and looting the buffet car seems a little extreme

 

Sounds a bloody horrible situation to me.

 

I'm just amazed it took people as long as 2 hours to take action.

 

StarSparkle

[Skatiechik 10]

Originally posted by spiffymonkey

Why would it be unsafe? There would hardly be any trains coming, if the power was off

 

As I understand it the power cable failure was created from cables breaking and falling down (hence them still being live and blowing around).

 

So the choice of letting passengers out for electrocution, or waiting inside dehydrating....hmmm stiff choice.

[cgksheff 44]

Passengers were advised not to leave the trains as the drop from door to track can be up to eight feet and they were told a replacement diesel engine was on its way.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=W3WFNC0NURUN3QFIQMFSNAGAVCBQ0JVC?xml=/news/2005/06/24/ntrain24.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/06/24/ixportal.html

[Cols 10]

I wasn't on that train but was on the one behind it

I left Kings Cross at 17:20 and the train reached Biggleswade station and stopped. 10 minutes later the announcer said that there was a power problem and the train would go back to London, stopping at Stevenage where coaches would take us to Peterborough station to carry on the journey. We got to Stevenage about 19:00 but no coaches around. There were about 200 of us hanging round the car park. The station master announced that they were having problems with the coaches and they could not give an ETA. I wandered into the town and booked myself a hotel for the night, knowing that the hotels would soon get booked up. At 21:00 I walked back to the station and there were even more people stood around as more trains had terminated at Stevenage. One coach had just left but there must have been 300 people stood around. The taxi's were having a field day. I was lucky as the company will pick up the hotel bill but there will be loads of people out of pocket with hotel and taxi fares. There was also a school trip on board my train, a few teachers and about 40 kids (8 or 9 year olds) so god knows what happened to them.

I've not been on a train for ages so I guess I was just unlucky and would have been impressed with the GNER service had it not been for this.

[Twiglet 10]

Exactly the same thing happened to me when I was on a GNER train on the same line, just outside Newark. This was in mid february so it was freezing cold because of no heating and they couldn't serve hot drinks to warm people up and we were there for almost 2 hours. However I would rather that than be stuck in one at 120 degrees.