What Happened Here?

Can't believe the actions of some of the people in the video! Obviously an unsettling experience, but simply no justification for the woman climbing out between the cars, even worse that it appears to happen still with shopping bag in hand! Unless the train is packed, the best option in this situation is to calmly walk to another car.

No idea about station cuts, apart from the general news. I am not anything transport related for my day job!

But given it was the Notting Hill Carnival etc. there was one single station supervisor who appeared (running) towards the train in that video. I'm sure in an ideal world there might be one or two staff present on the platform to see off the trains etc? If this were the case, the butterfly cocks could have been operated more quickly.

one problem - if train derails or catches fire and people trapped - eg driver or guard trapped or both dead - no way to open the emergency exit if the controls for escape are removed

same happened to London underground on central line years ago - they recommended a emergency release to aid the passegners out

Agree with the poster above and some LU staff on here need to get a grip and some sense of reality instead of talking nonsense about crowd behaviour in a completely ignorant way - just what are you trying to achieve? Why is there no "emergency door open" available on the tube as there is on....er....aeroplanes? It can't be hard.

As a non-railway man, now of rather advanced years, in a similar situation I would panic.

Down the years I have learned that it is the smoke that kills you, long before the fire is likely to get you. In a train carriage filling with smoke I would do my best to get out of the smoke and into fresh air.

In other situations it is quite likely to be safest in the train, but in a closed environment with the air filling (or appearing to fill) with carbon dioxide and other toxic items, outside is very much the best place to be.

John

Indeed, but the challenge is to get you outside in that situation without killing you on a live rail, or killing you under the train wheels, or getting you killed by other moving trains, and not preventing the running of the everyday service by someone opening a door to let their mates on, and keeping you on the train in situations where that is best.

I'm not a railwayman either, but I think the key thing that needs to happen in these sorts of incidents (and some others too most likely) is that identification of what the problem is, and the managing of the consequences of the problem or its symptoms needs to be vastly speeded up.
If a carriage is filling with smoke you need to deal immediately with the consequences of a carriage filling with smoke (panicking passengers) as near immediately as you can manage (move them to another part of the train if the current location can't be evacuated from; open as many doors as you can if at a station) and then deal with the cause of the problem.

I don't know what needs to change to do this, but some laypersons suggestions that might help in some situations.

• A one-button press that alerts staff:
• at the current station (if in or partially in a station) that the train in $platform needs assistance now.
• at the station ahead that the train approaching into $platform needs assistance the second it gets there, or will need help evacuating passengers to that station
• at the station behind that the train that has departed needs assistance and be ready to provide that, possibly including evacuating passengers to that station
• staff on adjacent trains, including on the other track in cases where this is useful, that the train ahead/behind/beside them has an incident that might need their help

[li]A system where it is known at all times which doors are adjacent to a platform, so that in the event of an emergency it is possible to quickly open all such doors remotely.[/li]
[li]A defined emergency response pattern for every location on the system, so that when the emergency button is pressed by a train at X the system immediately knows which stations to contact[/li]
[li]A method of passing information from the train management system/driver to staff on the platform, e.g. if the TMS detects (or the driver is informed of) smoke in car 5 and the driver pushes the emergency button, staff responding immediately know this without having to speak to the driver first[/li]
[li]Station staff located such that at lest X number of staff are able to reach any given point on the station in Y time. This concept comes from airport fire tenders. The first member of staff doesn't have to be able to do everything, just enough to get the response started until other staff get there[/li]
[li]A type of first responder. Passengers who are regularly on the system and who for 99% of the time are just regular passengers, but who are trained to keep calm and take charge in the initial moments of an incident wherever they happen to be. You can't guarantee every incident will have one of these people, but get sufficient and statistics are on your side. It is possible that volunteers alone would be sufficient, but if not then give them a small incentive - a small discount on an annual travel card or every 30th PAYG journey for half price. Commuters would be ideal people for the role as they travel fairly defined routes regularly and often at the busiest time of the day. [/li]
[/ul]

Chris, looking at those pictures there appears to me to be "somewhere to go" - don't you think so too? Don't you think that's what the passengers think so too?

Also, can you please provide me evidence to back-up your assertions re the different opinions of experts that you have asserted above?

Actually I think the present situation might be slightly more complicated than this in regards selective door opening.
If all doors on the train normally open at a given station, the CSDE equipment identifies whether the train is correctly berthed and, if it is, allows all doors to be opened.
If some doors on the train normally don't open at a given station, the CSDE equipment identifies that the train is correctly berthed and, if it is, allows all selected doors to be opened^[1].

In either case, if a train is not correctly berthed then the driver must take one of the following actions:

1. Move the train forward until it is correctly berthed
2. Verify that all the doors are adjacent to the platform and safe to be opened, then open them
3. Verify that some, but not all, doors are adjacent to the platform and safe to be opened, identify which doors they are and then open only those doors^[2]
4. Verify that some, but not all, doors are adjacent to the platform and safe to be opened, identify which doors they are and then (with the assistance of other staff is possible and required) manually open those doors
5. Determine that no or insufficient doors are adjacent to the platform and safe to open and proceed to the next station
6. Determine that no or insufficient doors are adjacent to the platform and safe to open and gain authority to set the train back
7. Determine that no or insufficient doors are adjacent to the platform and safe to open and gain authority for another course of action^[3][4]

[/li][/ol]

All actions are subject to limits placed by the rulebook, operating procedures, etc.
Notes:
[1] Actually it might be the inverse of this, i.e. selected doors are not opened, but the practical effect is the same.
[2] Subject to limits imposed by the train's SDO capabilities
[3] In certain situations this might be their own authority
[4] This might be evacuation via the track in an emergency, detraining all passengers onto the platform via the nearside cab door when there is a failed train in the platform (as I once witnessed at Newbury), or some other action.

My point is that at present, my understanding is that the driver has to determine which course of action is necessary and they may not be in immediate possession of all the facts. If I were specifying rolling stock, I would make it a requirement that at any given time the driver can in an emergency remotely release/open all doors that are safe to open, regardless of which doors they are, independently of the status of doors that are not safe to open, and without needing to know in advance which doors they are. It might also be desirable for someone on the platform to be able to open all such doors at once, but this would obviously require safeguards.
The driver at Holland Park did not have that ability, nor do we currently know whether they were aware the car was filling with smoke.

I stand by my earlier statement that there ought to be trained people able to reach a train on any platform at every station within a defined time period. If staff are not able to reach a platform within that time for any reason then trains should not call at that platform until they are.

Also, train drivers should be able to remotely speak to staff on the platform they are currently at without needing to know who they are. i.e the radio system should know which station it is at, and what the emergency call group is for that station is.
Likewise, station staff should in an emergency be able to contact the driver of a train in a given platform without needing to know the identity of that train. i.e. they should be able to connect with at most 2s button to the train currently in platform X [button 1 emergency call to train, button 2 platform number]

Actually from what I understand of this incident, the train had completed station duties, closed the doors and started to move off before the brake not releasing properly caused it to start smoking. How far the train moved we don't know (the video does not show either end of the train), but given that the doors weren't just reopened I have to assume it was sufficiently far that the train was no longer in the CSDE berth. Until a report is published though we will not know all the facts.

When an incident occurs when the train is fully berthed in the platform, yes all doors should be opened if it is safe to do so. However the majority of incidents occur when the train is not fully in the station and stationary in the platform, so you have to have procedures in place to deal with those situations too.

On a railway you cannot just open the doors when you aren't in a station. Unless the train has completely stopped and you are on a single-track non-electrified line with no possibility of shunting moves allowing a second train into the section, and you are not stopped in a tunnel, in a steep-sided deep cutting or on a high bridge or embankment then there is always the possibility of danger from other trains and/or the infrastructure. Even when all those conditions are met (which is nowhere on LU) you have to make sure all passengers are accounted for before train movements can resume.

Running a railway is a complex undertaking, and while it might seem obvious to a lay person with the benefit hindsight and a comfy armchair what should have happened in this case, the railway has to ensure that the safe thing happens in every situation when there is no time to think and you don't have all the information. Oh and while doing all that you have to make sure that there are no unnecessary delays when the situation isn't actually a problem.

There is no reason for passengers to not be able to open doors in an emergency at a station.

Understandable, but to back up Chris M's point and put it into seemingly plain english, if part of a train is in a tunnel, a train can't open it's doors.
If a train opens the doors in a tunnel (aka. not on the platform), there's nowhere for the people to go.
It's safer for doors to be released from the outside when it's in a platform than for people (or the driver) to release the doors in a tunnel.

IMO there would potentially less panic, as train attendants / captains (whatever hat) would be on board and able to witness the same situation as the average passenger.

Have a read of this interesting review of the arguments both for and against HERE

That only works when it is the front of the train that is in the platform, and is exactly what I mentioned seeing at Newbury Park.
At Holland Park the train was departing a station so the drivers cab door would be in the tunnel and useless for evacuation. If only the rear cab was in the platform then I would expect staff would evacuate via that route, but even one set of passenger doors would be preferred for several reasons - they're much wider (cab doors can only accommodate 1 person at a time) and there are lots of switches etc in the cab that passengers could knock (accidentally or deliberately) (I'm reminded of the 1967 stock tour when a staff member travelling in the cab wasn't holding on tight enough and accidentally turned the saloon lights off while we crossed from the Picc back to the Vic. In an evacuation scenario doing so could lead to panic very easily).

S Stock do have this feature already.
If a train overruns, the track level position detectors tells the train exactly where it is so by operating the cab door, 'emergency open' and buttons on the correct side, will only open the doors aligned with the platform.