Panic caused by smoke aboard train at Clapham Common

According to multiple people, there wasn't a single station staff member present, just a PA announcing 'leave the station immediately' although it's not confirmed and I highly doubt this is the case

Another uncontrolled evacuation. 10 years after Holland Park.

To be honest, even if there was a member of staff on the platform people would still be panicking - and quite possibly ignoring instructions.

The news film clip did not show this but if my memory is correct this is one of the stations with very narrow platforms.That makes controlled evacuation even harder.

Could a generic automatic announcement be played every 15 seconds on a loop throughout the entire train when a passenger alarm is activated, such as "The driver is aware that the passenger alarm has been activated. Staff assistance is on the way"? Perhaps in a human, calm but authoratative voice...

Without wishing to speculate, news reports on FB say there was no fire. The "smoke" was brake dust being blown into the train by a defective heater fan.

Meanwhile, we'll have to wait a year or more for the RAIB report.

I can’t imagine the cost of repeating the work carried out at Euston and Angel.

An interim solution maybe Clapham North and Common operating as unidirectional stations with barriers on the side of the platform without service. eg. Clapham North southbound only trains. Clapham Common Northbound only trains. Travel to the next station for the direction you need.

Unless the narrow island platform was a significant factor in the incident I cannot see it being more than a passing mention in any RAIB report (and we don't even know yet whether there will be one). It seems unlikely to me that it was a significant factor, given that the cause and reaction was very similar to the incident at Holland Park in 2013. The main impact was that the single staircase would make it harder for staff to reach the platform, but that is far from unique to this design of station


The costs would be very high. The Bank upgrade work cost £700m, and while that involved a lot more things this project would involve works at two separate stations and much greater tunnelling, including two new station tunnels (thus lots more spoil to dispose of), and it would make sense to take the opportunity to add step-free access and carry out any other long-standing wishes at the stations. So I wouldn't be surprised if this was also in the £500m-£750m ball park.

Would spending £500m in response to something that happens about once a decade and might never happen at either station (again) even if no work was done be justifiable when subject to benefit-cost analysis? I would be extraordinarily surprised. Even more so in the present climate when TfL don't have money burning a hole in their pocket.

There's no way the station would be unstaffed. The fact the train was half-way out of the station before it came to an emergency stop, will mean the train's driver would be unable to release the doors, as obviously half the train would be in tunnel, and one certainly wouldn't want passengers wandering around in a tube tunnel with traction current on. All the lights on the train later went out, probably because the driver called control and asked for traction current discharge. I'm not familiar enough with the Northern Line stock to know if there are individual external door release handles that could have been operated - if there are, then a member of station staff on the platform would have been useful. To be very clear there was no fire, just brake dust blown into the carriage.

No batteries to keep a few lights on? That doesn't sound right.

Clapham North and Clapham Common are only 0.63km apart in the Working Timetable listing, so it is likely cheaper to step plate either side of the two with a new running tunnel between, rather than four step plate junctions to do each station separately. Both stations link with local bus routes, so a compromise station between would likely not suit demand, would still require two new platforms and probably access at both ends to get close to current stations.

The Common provides a worksite for the southern step-plate junction and start of a new running tunnel. Both stations have deep level shelters, which might provide instant access to the level required, as has been long planned for Camden Town works. The former shelter areas may provide underground construction accommodation as was done at Bank using King William Street station. A new northbound platform alongside the current northbound line would allow access through to the current platform to use the existing stairs, escalators and ticket halls. It is likely step-free access would be demanded to the new platforms, which would provide access to the current platforms also with this traditional solution. Other upgrades might be done at the same time. This would reduce overcrowding and ease staff access for urgent detrainments, as demand continues to grow at these non-conventional stations.

The platform cameras remain on until the train has fully departed the platform and the train stopped only two cars into the tunnel.

I travelled to Clapham Common Station yesterday evening and noticed that the tunnel lights were on between Clapham North and Clapham Common.

As others have suggested, all LU rolling stock have a certain number of lights in each carriage powered by on board batteries. Lighting will certainly be dim once traction current goes off and only the battery powered lights remain but there's no way the entire train would be left in complete darkness just because traction current has gone off.

The battery powered lights must last a minimum of one hour thus LU work to a one hour detrainment target for stalled trains. In the case of the Clapham Common incident being discussed in this thread, the whole thing from start to finish including the train being checked by LFB lasted just 30 minutes - well within the tolerance for the batteries. I'd suggest that once the train was checked and confirmed to empty, the lights were deliberately turned off.


All LU passenger rolling stock have external emergency access facilities.

Whilst no one disagrees that a member of staff on the platform would have been desirable, it's simply not practical to permanently staff every platform. As we've already established, station staff will find extremely difficult or impossible to gain access to a platform during the initial phase of an uncontrolled evacuation.


That's not correct.

A train will be stopped if a PEA (Passenger Emergency Alarm) is operated whilst any part of it is within station limits. The train may become become stopped fully outside of platform limits but we'll still deal with that PEA as if the train was still within platform limits. We have to establish that the cause of the PEA operation isn't related to the platform area (ie, dragging, drop between the train & platform, etc). It has nothing to do with the rear cab or it's proximity to a platform.


As far as I know only S stock has the ability to show in-carriage CCTV to the driver and in the case of that system, yes, a PEA activation will bring up the in-carriage CCTV but it will only do so once the train has come to a stand.