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2,000 people trapped in English channel after 5 Eurostar trains break down

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2,000 people trapped in English channel after 5 Eurostar trains break down
Posted by Lyon_Wonder on Saturday, December 19, 2009 2:38 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8421875.stm

More than 2,000 people spent hours trapped inside the Channel Tunnel after five Eurostar trains broke down due to cold weather. The trains failed as they left the cold air in northern France and entered the warmer tunnel. Some passengers were evacuated via service tunnels to car trains, while others were kept on their trains. Many have faced gruelling 15-hour journeys. Eurostar has cancelled all its services for Saturday. Meanwhile, more snow and freezing temperatures are expected for parts of Scotland and south-east and eastern England. Heavy snowfall caused travel chaos, forced schools to close and cut off power supplies in parts of the UK on Friday.

Electrics failure

Although one Eurostar train is still stuck in the tunnel, there are no passengers on board. John Keefe from Eurotunnel, the operator of the Channel Tunnel, said the situation was "absolutely extraordinary and unprecedented". "There's never actually been an evacuation of a Eurostar train in the 15 years that the tunnel has been opened and last night we evacuated two whole trains to get people off."

Four trains have been moved from the tunnel but an empty one remains stuck.

The five trains were coming from Brussels and Paris, and Eurostar said the change in the atmospheric conditions caused a problem with their electrics.

Eurostar said some passengers were already back in England.

Director of communications Mary Walsh said the company was "extremely sorry" for the delays and refunds would be available for all those affected.

"We will also be looking at compensation," she added.

Many people are at terminals at either end of the tunnel, waiting to make the crossing or to be transferred to other stations in England.

Lee Godfree, a passenger evacuated from one of the stranded trains, said he and his family had arrived in Folkestone at 0500 GMT, having left Disneyland Paris at 1837 GMT.

He said their journey had been a "complete nightmare".

"We were without power. We ran out of water, we ran out of food and there was very, very poor communication from the staff," he told the BBC.

 

 

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Posted by petitnj on Saturday, December 19, 2009 3:11 PM

 What caused the trains to fail? "Changes in the atmosphere caused electrics to fail" I have a sneaking suspicion that it is more than that. Most likely the ground fault indicator tripped on something as moisture built up and the computer shut it down. Nice design. Anyone want to run that equipment across the Rockies?

 

Temp in UK is -3 to +1 C and Temp in northern France is -4 to +1 C. These are not conditions that should cause these systems to fail. 

 

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Posted by The Butler on Saturday, December 19, 2009 3:51 PM

petitnj

 What caused the trains to fail? "Changes in the atmosphere caused electrics to fail" I have a sneaking suspicion that it is more than that. Most likely the ground fault indicator tripped on something as moisture built up and the computer shut it down. Nice design. Anyone want to run that equipment across the Rockies?

 

Temp in UK is -3 to +1 C and Temp in northern France is -4 to +1 C. These are not conditions that should cause these systems to fail. 

 

Yes, but what is the temperature and humidity inside the tunnel?

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Posted by petitnj on Saturday, December 19, 2009 4:28 PM

 Apparently the tunnel is cooled by sea water to keep down the heat from trains, air flow, lights and such. I doubt the humidity is that high as outside air is pumped in at either end to ventilate the system. Again, if the outside air were -30 C I would expect the cold train parts to frost up. But -1 C? And we don't seem to have these problems in our tunnels. The tunnels all have flowing water and warm air.

 Can you say over engineered? 

 Apparently the trains quit early in their underwater travels. They pulled them out at either end. 

 But really there is no excuse for a failure in these moderate conditions. 

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Posted by samfp1943 on Saturday, December 19, 2009 5:09 PM

petitnj

 Apparently the tunnel is cooled by sea water to keep down the heat from trains, air flow, lights and such. I doubt the humidity is that high as outside air is pumped in at either end to ventilate the system. Again, if the outside air were -30 C I would expect the cold train parts to frost up. But -1 C? And we don't seem to have these problems in our tunnels. The tunnels all have flowing water and warm air.

 Can you say over engineered? 

 Apparently the trains quit early in their underwater travels. They pulled them out at either end. 

 But really there is no excuse for a failure in these moderate conditions. 

WELL!  Some grist for the mill..      This little breakdown ought to open a new thread on the vunerability of electric trains. Sure says a lot for equipment used in the past, and currently on the US systems; although we do not have operational tunnels of their length and transit.  Wonder what gremlin attacked the Chunnel Operations? 

Thank goodness, no life was lost.

 

 


 

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Posted by zardoz on Saturday, December 19, 2009 5:38 PM

petitnj
But really there is no excuse for a failure in these moderate conditions. 

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Posted by Sulzermeister on Saturday, December 19, 2009 5:43 PM

Reported on Beeb that Tunnel internal temperature is around 25°C.

 Andrew Harper

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Posted by carnej1 on Saturday, December 19, 2009 6:13 PM

samfp1943

petitnj

 Apparently the tunnel is cooled by sea water to keep down the heat from trains, air flow, lights and such. I doubt the humidity is that high as outside air is pumped in at either end to ventilate the system. Again, if the outside air were -30 C I would expect the cold train parts to frost up. But -1 C? And we don't seem to have these problems in our tunnels. The tunnels all have flowing water and warm air.

 Can you say over engineered? 

 Apparently the trains quit early in their underwater travels. They pulled them out at either end. 

 But really there is no excuse for a failure in these moderate conditions. 

WELL!  Some grist for the mill..      This little breakdown ought to open a new thread on the vunerability of electric trains. Sure says a lot for equipment used in the past, and currently on the US systems; although we do not have operational tunnels of their length and transit.  Wonder what gremlin attacked the Chunnel Operations? 

Thank goodness, no life was lost.

Your right...we should stop all talk of any additional electrification in the United States because of course highways, airports, and railroads using diesel motive power are never,ever effected by bad weather..

I realize now that all the documentation of the Milwaukee Road's Western electrification is all a hoax perpetrated by the Green movement..

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Saturday, December 19, 2009 6:26 PM

Sulzermeister

Reported on Beeb that Tunnel internal temperature is around 25°C.

If so that is about 77 degrees F. It is possible that there are solid state components that are exposed to the outside temp and if going into that temp may frost up almost immediately. do not take this as gospel.

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Posted by The Butler on Saturday, December 19, 2009 6:39 PM

blue streak 1

Sulzermeister

Reported on Beeb that Tunnel internal temperature is around 25°C.

If so that is about 77 degrees F. It is possible that there are solid state components that are exposed to the outside temp and if going into that temp may frost up almost immediately. do not take this as gospel.

I was told once, all you need is seven degrees Fahrenheit difference between air and surface for condensation to form.

James


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Posted by Phoebe Vet on Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:10 PM

The Butler

I was told once, all you need is seven degrees Fahrenheit difference between air and surface for condensation to form.

Warm air can hold more moisture that cold air.  Cooling air below it's dew point will cause it to release water.  In order to know what that temperature is, you have to know the humidity and thus the dew point of the warmer air.

Are we sure the electrical problem was on the train and not the supply?

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Posted by Milepost 266.2 on Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:15 PM
blue streak 1

Sulzermeister

Reported on Beeb that Tunnel internal temperature is around 25°C.

If so that is about 77 degrees F. It is possible that there are solid state components that are exposed to the outside temp and if going into that temp may frost up almost immediately. do not take this as gospel.

Yeah, but why now? They've been operating the same equipment for several years running, right?
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Posted by Milepost 266.2 on Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:15 PM
blue streak 1

Sulzermeister

Reported on Beeb that Tunnel internal temperature is around 25°C.

If so that is about 77 degrees F. It is possible that there are solid state components that are exposed to the outside temp and if going into that temp may frost up almost immediately. do not take this as gospel.

Yeah, but why now? They've been operating the same equipment for several years running, right?
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Posted by henry6 on Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:36 PM

All it takes is one train's electrical to gather water, short out and blow the whole system.  It could be that only one locomotive got hit but knocked out the entire electic system. Or even if the frost liquified on several at once overloading the lines...its definitely electrical.  But it's never happend before...so let's see what evolves.  As was noted by several above any talk of electifying any rail lines, especially in tunnels, in America hangs in the balance.  I could go on with more sarcastic comments on those who cast political dispersions on everything, but I won't.

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Posted by BaltACD on Saturday, December 19, 2009 11:01 PM

Man made things fail.  Though I am surprised that in 15 years of operation this problem hasn't shown up before now.  The temperature listed, while certanily cool, are not really extreme...at least not when compared to the operating enviornments in the US. 

77 F sounds terribly warm for a tunnel, unless there is machienry contained within the tunnel complex that is constantly generating heat.  I would have expected a normal temperature or 55-58 F.

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Posted by petitnj on Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:04 AM

 This is starting to sound like an administrative nightmare. (See Northwest airlink at Rochester, MN). Not only did the trains halt in the tunnel for 6 hours, but they had no way to evacuate and reembark in an orderly manner. Eurostar was trying to get passengers out of the trains but couldn't get the relief trains moving either. Then once they got trains out of the chunnel, they didn't have anywhere to put the passengers (buses for 400 show up at a 700 passenger train). I can appreciate the chaos this would cause, but keeping passengers trapped in a hot, dark train is not the answer. They have to have some plan to move evacuees.

Passenger systems have to have enough backup so that the tunnels don't go dark and the ventilation quit. What about a battery powered relief locomotive? Sweep in, grab the train. get out. $50 bucks says you can't move these trains without power to the computer, etc. Mr Westinghouse would roll over in his grave. 

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Posted by henry6 on Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:55 AM

If what I saw on TV, and remember from when the Chunnel was unveiled, there are parallel "walking" tunnels, well lit and ventliated,  which were used.  However, the concept of dragging your luggage up to 13 miles, as was inferred by the pictures, is unimagainable.

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Posted by ButchKnouse on Sunday, December 20, 2009 9:30 AM

Ironic, isn't it, that this happens during the Global Warming Conference?

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Posted by Phoebe Vet on Sunday, December 20, 2009 10:16 AM

ButchKnouse

Ironic, isn't it, that this happens during the Global Warming Conference?

Is that humor, or another person who doesn't understand the difference between global climate and local weather?

Global warming causes excessive melting of the polar ice caps, which dumps cold fresh water into the ocean, disrupting the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream helps move warm water north from the equatorial region.  Thus you get colder local weather  in the mid latitudes.

This anomalous cold weather is actually evidence of global warming, not against it.

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, December 20, 2009 12:00 PM

All Eurostar service has been suspended until the root cause of the failures has been found and fixed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091220/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_train_breakdowns

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Posted by carnej1 on Sunday, December 20, 2009 12:15 PM

henry6

If what I saw on TV, and remember from when the Chunnel was unveiled, there are parallel "walking" tunnels, well lit and ventliated,  which were used.  However, the concept of dragging your luggage up to 13 miles, as was inferred by the pictures, is unimagainable.

They aren't walking tunnels, they  wide enough to accommodate service vehicles including shuttle buses so nobody walked 13 miles..

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Sunday, December 20, 2009 3:24 PM

Phoebe Vet
This anomalous cold weather is actually evidence of global warming, not against it.

BTW---most climatologists are referring to this as Global Climate Change.

 IIRC the 1970's featured a whole slew of things about the upcoming ice age---brought on by man--

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Sunday, December 20, 2009 5:14 PM

The English "railway Herald" had a picture of two diesels that pulled the broken down train that entered the tunnel from the Brit side and it pulled the train all the way to ST. Pancres with the PANs down. Appears to be some kind of electrical failure on the train.

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Posted by MJChittick on Sunday, December 20, 2009 5:55 PM

Following is an AP story on the shutdown of the Eurostar operations.  Sound like the power cars may have injested too much loose, powdery snow!

Eurostar train services canceled indefinitely

 
People seen at St. Pancras Station in London, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009. The AP – People seen at St. Pancras Station in London, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009. The Eurostar train service between …
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 1 min ago

LONDON – The only passenger rail link between Britain and the rest of Europe has been shut down indefinitely, Eurostar said Sunday, promising more travel misery for thousands of stranded passengers just before Christmas.

Services have been suspended since late Friday, when a series of glitches stranded five trains inside the Channel Tunnel and trapped more than 2,000 passengers for hours in stuffy and claustrophobic conditions. More than 55,000 passengers overall have been affected.

Some panicked passengers stayed underground for more than 15 hours without food or water, or any clear idea of what was going on — prompting outrage from travelers and a promise from Eurostar that no passenger train would enter the tunnel until the issue had been identified and fixed.

Eurostar runs services between England, France and Belgium. The company said Sunday it had traced the problem to "acute weather conditions in northern France," which has seen its worst winter weather in years.

Eurostar commercial director Nick Mercer said three test trains sent through the Channel Tunnel on Sunday ran successfully, but that it became clear that the especially bad weather meant that snow was being sucked into the trains in a way "that has never happened before."

"The engineers on board have recommended strongly that, in light of further snowfalls that are happening tonight, we make some modifications to the trains on snow shields to stop snow being ingested into the power car," he told the BBC.

A Eurostar statement said the fleet was already undergoing upgrades and that more tests were planned for Monday. But a spokeswoman said she could not guarantee that service would resume Tuesday.

A statement posted to the company's Web site urged passengers to delay their trips or seek refunds.

The stoppage has already meant that about 31,000 people in Britain, France and Belgium have had to cancel trips Saturday, and 26,000 more were expected to be affected Sunday. With a huge backlog of passengers still building, Eurostar is blocking any sales until after Christmas and Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown has warned that services may not be back to normal for days.

For those seeking alternative routes between Paris, Brussels and London, the winter weather was dealing out more bad news.

Nearly half of all flights out of Paris' Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports were cut Sunday through mid-afternoon, with more cancellations forecast for Monday. Belgium was also badly hit, with passengers in Brussels lining up for hours in an effort to rebook flights.

Tourist Paul Dunn, 46, who was stuck in Paris, said he was looking for alternatives but that information was hard to come by.

"We said: 'Can we get the train to (the French city of) Calais and the ferry?' They are saying: 'We don't know what you can do. You can try.'"

It is a measure of the popularity of the 15-year-old Eurostar service — which whisks passengers from London to Paris or Brussels in about two hours — that its closure has dominated news in Britain.

European parliamentarians on both sides of the Channel have criticized the train company as being irresponsible, while Britain's opposition Conservative Party said the issue was a matter of "huge concern."

Brown seemed to acknowledge that there were some problems, apologizing for the Friday's incident and the ensuing delays, but defended his staff.

"I'm not pretending it went well. I think it went quite a bit better than people say," he told the BBC.

The problems — and passengers' complaints about their treatment while trapped on board — could deal Eurostar "huge reputational damage," said Nigel Harris, the managing editor of Rail magazine.

"They have promoted themselves as the 'green,' stress-free alternative to flying and now they face a major technical issue that they need to get on top of," he said.

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Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Sunday, December 20, 2009 7:40 PM

MJChittick
  Following is an AP story on the shutdown of the Eurostar operations.  Sound like the power cars may have injested too much loose, powdery snow! 

Uhhh . . . anybody else remember that something very similar sidelined almost the entire PRR GG1 fleet one February about 50 years ago - a unique set of atmospheric conditions created fine powdery snow or ice crystals that got into the blower ducts and then into the traction motors . . . zap !  If I recall correctly, the problem was fixed by relocating the blower intakes and adding filters - made of 'French linen', whatever that is, if I remember correctly. 

From http://www.fineartmodels.com/pages/product.asp?content_area=3&sub_area=10&product_area=49 :

In 1958, extreme cold produced a snow so granular that it swirled through the GG1s’ air-intake filters, then melted and shorted out their traction motors.  As many as 70 GG1s went out of service concurrently, causing the Pennsy’s worst-ever failure of passenger service.

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Posted by Modelcar on Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:09 PM

Paul_D_North_Jr
Uhhh . . . anybody else remember that something very similar sidelined almost the entire PRR GG1 fleet one February about 50 years ago

Paul....I don't have any memory or knowledge of that, but I do recall 1958 was a distructive Winter season.  We in Somerset County had a total of 188" of snow.

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:47 PM

Paul_D_North_Jr

MJChittick
  Following is an AP story on the shutdown of the Eurostar operations.  Sound like the power cars may have injested too much loose, powdery snow! 

Uhhh . . . anybody else remember that something very similar sidelined almost the entire PRR GG1 fleet one February about 50 years ago - a unique set of atmospheric conditions created fine powdery snow or ice crystals that got into the blower ducts and then into the traction motors . . . zap !  If I recall correctly, the problem was fixed by relocating the blower intakes and adding filters - made of 'French linen', whatever that is, if I remember correctly. 

From http://www.fineartmodels.com/pages/product.asp?content_area=3&sub_area=10&product_area=49 :

In 1958, extreme cold produced a snow so granular that it swirled through the GG1s’ air-intake filters, then melted and shorted out their traction motors.  As many as 70 GG1s went out of service concurrently, causing the Pennsy’s worst-ever failure of passenger service.

- Paul North.

I recall the winter of 58.  The Mid-Atlantic area had two bad storms approximately a month apart.  One in February was the one with extreme cold and the fine powdery snow.  There was one in March that was a heavy wet snow that pulled down the catenary on the PRR.  A tough expensive Winter for the PRR.

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Posted by beaulieu on Sunday, December 20, 2009 9:01 PM
What ever is determined to be the cause it appears to have not affected the electric locomotives used by Eurotunnel to operate the Car and truck shuttles. However it is stupid to have different coupling systems such that it is difficult to rescue a disabled Eurostar. Note that Eurostars do have an adapter coupler that they carry on board but this will be the the umpteenth time that bad planning and slow reaction to a crisis lead to big problems. Both tunnels must have been affected, they are side by side with two crossovers along the way. There is a service tunnel in between.
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Posted by aegrotatio on Sunday, December 20, 2009 10:39 PM

 This is the case of bad instrumentation.

The cause should have been found immediately, but we are on day three with no cause, except some speculation about condensation caused by "harsh winters in France."

These guys better get on the ball soon.  This kind of problem should never be a mystery for more than a few hours for any respectable engineering operation.  I'm embarrassed for them.

 

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Posted by karldotcom on Monday, December 21, 2009 12:04 AM

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