Eurostar Breakdowns in Chunnel Today

[BaltACD]

henry6

Again, look at the fine snow disaster of the GG1 in the 70's or 80's.  These machines had been rattling along for some 40 to 50 years before there was a problem.  Therefore you cannot blame Eurostar out of hand for this sudden problem: they were caught flatfooted.  And when you have a service  distruption involving as many people as this, there is going to be a lot of screaming, yelling, crying, finger pointing and unfounded accusations about who knew what and what should have been done years ago.  Similarly there will be some very real problems that could have, and should have, never happened or at least been remedied swiftly and efficiently.  Bad weather, bad timing, bad tempers.

All of which goes to prove the old idiom....

Those that can't remember history are bound to repeat it.

Those who designed the Eurostar had available to them the history of the GG1 problems and either chose not to investigate it and design for such conditions or made the decision...it couldn't happen here.  The reality of the human condition and it's technology dictates that if something can occur one place....it can occur other places as well.

[BillyFloyd]

I thought of that GG1incident immediately. It occurred in Feb. 1958, but your point remains valid: unusual weather conditions allowed very fine snow to enter the locomotives' air intakes, causing shorts that disabled a substantial portion of the the Pennsy's motive power all at once. In reaction, the railroad moved the intakes to a higher position on many (but not all) of the GG1 fleet.

This Channel Tunnel incident certainly gave at least a superficial impression of history repeating itself after a half-century.

 

 

[henry6]

Again, look at the fine snow disaster of the GG1 in the 70's or 80's.  These machines had been rattling along for some 40 to 50 years before there was a problem.  Therefore you cannot blame Eurostar out of hand for this sudden problem: they were caught flatfooted.  And when you have a service  distruption involving as many people as this, there is going to be a lot of screaming, yelling, crying, finger pointing and unfounded accusations about who knew what and what should have been done years ago.  Similarly there will be some very real problems that could have, and should have, never happened or at least been remedied swiftly and efficiently.  Bad weather, bad timing, bad tempers.

[beaulieu]

dthede

See also  http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/19/channel.tunnel/index.html for the statement that:

"The five trains became stuck in the tunnel because the air inside was much warmer than the air outside the tunnel entrance in France, Eurostar spokeswoman Amelle Mouhaddib told CNN.

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"She said she believed it was the first time that air temperatures had caused Eurostar trains to fail."

 

Does anyone know why th edifference in air temp would cause train failure? 5 times?

 

The five trains entered the tunnel at very short intervals, once tunnel control realized they had a problem no further trains tried to enter the tunnel. Early reports have very fine powdering snow entering the electrical cooling system, then flashing to liquid in the very warm tunnel (77 F). Conventional freight train locomotives and the locomotives that haul the car and truck shuttles were not affected.

[dthede]

See also  http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/19/channel.tunnel/index.html for the statement that:

"The five trains became stuck in the tunnel because the air inside was much warmer than the air outside the tunnel entrance in France, Eurostar spokeswoman Amelle Mouhaddib told CNN.

var currExpandable = "expand1"; var currExpandableHeight = 360;

"She said she believed it was the first time that air temperatures had caused Eurostar trains to fail."

 

Does anyone know why th edifference in air temp would cause train failure? 5 times?

[dthede]

Does anyone have any further information about the strange breakdowns of 4 London-bound trains in the Chunnel? see http://my.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20091219/233b5ebb-c539-46ad-ba00-2c76bae3fcfd for the AP article about the 2,000 sdtranded people.