An emergency brake application, without the power, wouldn't produce enough braking to kill people or "pull the train apart". The events, and the limited photos suggest that the train either came off the rails and/or hit something....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

An emergency brake application, without the power, wouldn't produce enough braking to kill people or "pull the train apart". The events, and the limited photos suggest that the train either came off the rails and/or hit something....

...and being a single track tunnel the how &/or what will be interesting to find out.

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An emergency brake application, without the power, wouldn't produce enough braking to kill people or "pull the train apart". The events, and the limited photos suggest that the train either came off the rails and/or hit something....

Consider front car no electricity, in emergency, back car still has full power for a second then it goes into emergency. I don't know how effective the breaking is on these cars.

Hitting something in a tunnel, since the line has been in use for a while, it isn't a tunnel wall. Might be part of the ceiling fell down, or a part off the previous train. Might be metal fatigue breaking a rail. If none of these then it was American sabotage.

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Consider front car no electricity, in emergency, back car still has full power for a second then it goes into emergency. I don't know how effective the breaking is on these cars.

Not powerful enough to pull a train apart.

"All Underground trains have two braking systems, the service brake for normal use and the emergency brake. The emergency brake is provided to allow the train to be stopped if anything goes wrong with the service brake or if an unsafe situation arises. Standard features on Underground rolling stock are a driver's safety device, which takes the form of the famous deadman's handle on most stocks, and the tripcock, which applies the emergency brake if the train overruns a danger signal.

Older stocks used a system whereby the emergency brake is applied if a passenger alarm handle is operated in the car. Frequent misuse and the difficulty of obtaining assistance if a train stopped between stations has led to a policy whereby all stocks are equipped with an electronic passenger emergency alarm which alerts the driver but does not stop the train between stations. This allows more rapid assistance because platform access is available, prevents the danger of trains being stopped in tunnels where there is smoke and allows outside help to reach the train more quickly.

The emergency brake was traditionally pneumatically controlled through the train-length brake pipe and provided air-operated friction brakes acting on the wheel treads. Service braking was also controlled in this way until the introduction of electro-pneumatic control in the late 1920s. All Underground stock now has e.p. controlled service braking and, since 1967, new stocks have been provided with rheostatic braking on motor cars. From 1973, new stock had electrical control of emergency braking provided in place of the rather vulnerable brake pipe."

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Another potential case of profits before safety?

TGV Crash

"The collision follows a recent damning report into the rail crash south of Paris last year, in which seven people died.

That report highlighted the poor state of France's rail network, with the blame placed on poor maintenance checks."

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When you analyse it public ground transportation is so much better than personal transportation (cars,trucks or vans). It's safer, not as hard on the environment and in the long run cheaper. When you add up the cost of owning, or leasing, your own personal vehicle the numbers are sobering. But even though the government has been steadily jacking up the cost of gas and diesel we still cling stubbornly to our PTS of choice. I am as guilty as anyone with my excuse being that public transportation is difficult for a disabled person to use, especially if confined to a wheelchair. So far I haven't mentioned the biggest reason which is the safety factor. Cars are dangerous. Even if you are the safest driver in the world you are out there amongst strangers that you must depend on to drive safely too. Drunk drivers, sleepy drivers, distracted drivers, angry drivers, idiot drivers and then the worst of all, young new drivers are all out there every day.

But those of us who still own cars ignore all of the above and go out every day putting our fate in the hands of strangers.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Have to agree. However, being an ex-train driver in the days when track maintenance was excellent, I cannot help but see it as profits before safety when seeing reports such as the one I linked to.

To make matters even worse was a report yesterday on the BBC that the transport secretary was considering doubling the points on a driver's license for using a mobile phone.

It will not stop the idiots from doing it. Harsher convictions are needed. When required, I still travel to London on the ECML as it's quicker & safer than road (& with the cost of fuel, cheaper).

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TGV crash last week.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Train collision in Slinger, Wisconsin.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/ozwash/slinger-train-derailment-leads-to-evacuations-b99314884z1-267883351.html

Same crash with video from a reporter with no clue.
http://www.wisn.com/news/incident-involving-train-reported-in-slinger/27051506#!bjh2h9

At this location, the Canadian National coming north from Waukesha and the Wisconsin & Southern coming northwest from Milwaukee run parallel for a few miles, then cross on a diamond and WSOR heads west. From what I can see in the video, my guess (emphasis on guess) is that a southbound CN train struck the rear end of a WSOR train that hadn't cleared the crossing. I have no idea if there is a signal to protect this crossing (but I think it's likely there is).

Surprisingly, Trains Magazine has yet to post anything on its News Wire page, even thought it happened practically in their own back yard.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

:( Not good news David. Thanks for letting us know.

:( Not good news David. Thanks for letting us know.

It could have been a lot worse.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Wisconsin follow-up:

The diamond crossing in Slinger was at a very shallow angle and was apparently changed to a pair of switches at some point in time.

Railfans who may or may not know what they're talking about have posted on Facebook that the CN train had a clear signal and that the WSOR train, which was northbound, backed up blindly. I make no claims about the veracity of that statement. (But I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be at least partially true.)

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

One dead, 90 injured in train crash in S.Korea
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140722_46.html

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One dead, 90 injured in train crash in S.Korea
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140722_46.html

:(

Hope my son doesn't watch the news... we're travelling to Bedford on the train tomorrow. His anxiety levels will go through the roof...

Plane crash in Taiwan.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Plane crash in Taiwan.

Terrible :(

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Plane crash in Taiwan.

Terrible :(

Oh no... :(

Here we go again ....

Missing Plane

:((

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/07/air-algerie-plane-disappears-from-radar-201472493522369992.html

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UN troops in Mali say they understand the plane came down between Gao and Tessalit, the BBC's Alex Duval Smith in the Malian capital Bamako reports.

Brigadier General Koko Essien, who is leading the UN troops, told the BBC that the area leading up to the Algerian border was vast and sparsely populated. He added that weather in the area had been bad overnight.

Armed groups are also said to be active in the area. However, at the moment the most probable scenario looks like a plane that came down in bad weather, our correspondent adds.

BBC

:(((

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