it came down the hill to catastrophe nearly
but never blew
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11016085
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Train brakes are like a truck and require air to release the brakes so when this was un coupled the brakes should have come on and this stopped.
However i suspect and i have no proof of the problem, This is what we call a "swinger" this is a unit with no brakes the parking brakes are released manaully and it's coupled with at least 2x carrages in front and 2-3 behind then electrically coupled and air fed through unit so it will be removed from main line to a maintenace yard for repair.
If this was not coupled correctly to the first set of carrages and broke free before the next set came to couple only the slightest incline and it will roll and pick up speed very quickly.
So to stop it derail it.
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I am working next to a railway right now, well during the day anyway and to think of a carriage running away is a daunting prospect.
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They don't as a rule! A passenger train when the doors open the brakes come on this was a maintennace unit i beleive from the paper i read it in.
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It was a private contractors maintenance trolly that ran away on Shap, killing four poor guys south of Tebay in the Lune Gorge.
A horrifying scenario. imagine 20 tons of steel arriving at the point where you are working, out of the dark.
The Contractor had bodged up the parking brakes rather than spend money on them.
Quite rightly, he and others went down for manslaughter.
Ted
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I recall a tube runaway many years ago from Baker Street station.
The train trundled sedately all the way to Old Street before coming to a halt.
Apparently, the track is either level or on a slight decline all the way, and the train only came to rest on the approach to Old Street, which is a slight incline.
Last edited by: ifithelps on Thu 19 Aug 10 at 15:41
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It happened last week on the Northern Line.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-10964766
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Same story as bb posted. Sorry. :-(
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>>>>I recall a tube runaway many years ago from Baker Street station.
The train trundled sedately all the way to Old Street before coming to a halt.<<<<
If it managed to run to Old St from Baker Street it must have gone via a somewhat circuitous route! ( I guess it would have found the escalators a little difficult).
P.S. Nearly all tube stations have an uphill gradient on entry, and downhill on exit, to minimise braking and aid acceleration. Some train nerd will be along later with full details.
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...If it managed to run to Old St from Baker Street it must have gone via a somewhat circuitous route!...
Good point.
Perhaps it was Moorgate, but I'm fairly sure it trundled for a few miles along the Metropolitan or Circle line.
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The idea of a runaway wagon forms the basis of a classic piece of moral dilema research, running something like this.
A wagon is running out of control down a line and if not stopped will certainly kill 6 workmen. You can operate a set of points and divert it down a line where only one man will be killed. Is it morally right to deliberately sacrifice the one for the sake of the 6?
Most people agree, yes.
Now supposing the 6 are still at risk, but you can save them by pushing the one man under the wagon. Is that still right?
Most people now not so sure. What is the difference?
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>>What is the difference?
In the position where you could push a man under the wagon, you would also be able to stop it yourself by jumping under the wagon - you wouldn't need to kill anybody else.
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The other difference is that of the six, you would be choosing which to push under the wagon. In the first scenario there is a straightforward comparison: kill six or kill one; in the second you have to make the choice of which one to kill.
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Yes, there are practical differences, but morally you are still in the position of deciding which one person should die in order to save six.
NC's point is one I haven't seen before - may be I have got the scenario slightly wrong and that isn't an option.
The two big differences that seem to cause most people doubt are:
1) in the first example there is a delay between action and death, during which conceivably something else might happen - eg the workers notice the wagon and jump out of the way in time. If you divert the wagon may be there is a bigger chance of one man jumping clear than of all 6.
2) in the second example you actually get your hands dirty as it were, even though the result is the same.
Anyway, you can go on adding variations to the theme and then test people to see how comfortable they feel with the various options. It's not supposed to be an exercise with a correct answer, merely a device for examining people's often illogical way of comparing risks and assessing options.
A bit like "Is it OK to torture a bomber in order to find out where the bomb is"?
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There's six on here that id push under the train to stop it.!!
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>>2) in the second example you actually get your hands dirty as it were, even though the result is the same.
It's an intersting one - I wonder how many would become vegetarian if they had to do the slaughtering and butchering themselves?
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It's an intersting one - I wonder how many would become vegetarian if they had to do the slaughtering and butchering themselves?
Whats this go to do with a runaway train? Thread overload again.
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>>Whats this go to do with a runaway train?
Sorry, I had let myself run away with the idea of threads being a free ranging discussion, with replies being sparked in a near spontaneous way by the ideas raised in the posts above. I thought that was one of the joys and freedoms of this site as opposed to others?
I can't imagine anyone ever searching this forum to find out about runaway trains on the underground, so, unlike, say, a thread describing how to set the carb on a 1985 Metro, surely there's no need to be so strict.
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I knew somebody who would only eat chicken and fish as he could imagine killing them himself.
Equally I remember biology lessons at school with hardened youths throwing up when asked to disect a heart (which incidentally is one of my favourite things to eat).
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it was cutting up fresh eyeballs delivered direct from the abattoir in a box that stopped me considering a vets career
i can still smell them all these years later
yuck......
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I did shoot a deer once, but had a bit of help with the gralloching (all amateur however).
My youngest daughter is strictly vegan, but makes an exception for game which she regards as having been honourably killed after a natural life, not exploited and abused from the cradle to the, er, table. Fortunately she's never seen me assassinating pheasants at dusk like a Sicilian mafioso. Actually I haven't even done that for at least a decade, perhaps more.
In Nigeria once a young woman pressed me to eat a perfect sphere of whitish gristle, a bit smaller than a golf ball (too small to be a cow's eye). It was sweet, she said, so I ate it to be polite. Actually it was a tiny bit tasteless and not swamped in the pepper so freely used in Yorubaland (which I like personally). But I'm damned if I can work out what it was. Part of some complicated cattle joint I think.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 20 Aug 10 at 15:29
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The lads on ' The Long Way Round ' were presented with a large steaming vat of over a hundred testicles, formerly owned by sheep, cattle and goats.
' Two portions of Testicles, chips and mushy peas, please Luv. '
I think a Big Mac would have gone down somewhat better !
Ted
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Cow Cod Soup, they call it in Jamaica. Eaten with enthusiasm by those whose pencils need lead put in them.
Can't say I fancy it really, although given what we all eat ground up in sausages and so on I suppose it's a bit squeamish of me.
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A load more pointless load of flannel on this site again more old folk talking tripe...........
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I think it's a load of bol88cks............
I'm off now!
Pat
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Well at least mappy got to the heart of the matter and had the guts to do so.
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Mapmaker is particularly fond of a Clarissa Dickson Wright recipe called "Bo...ks to Blair" which is fried roe deer testicles.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Fri 20 Aug 10 at 17:10
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O well more training courses to look forward to at least there over time.
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the runaway train - Bigtee
