Oversight gets the Green A3 in trouble.

[rab]

Sorry I don't know how to paste links using a tablet,

but I've just read that someone omitted to turn off

the smoke alarms at Victoria before Scotsman arrived

this evening, resulting in the station being evacuated;

must have gone down well in the rush hour!

 

(Title edited, was "That Green A3's causing trouble again).

Edited June 1, 2018 by rab

[Steamport Southport]

Will this do?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44324691

 

 

 

 

Jason

[009 micro modeller]

Surely a better headline would be 'Scotsman told not to smoke in London station.'

 

Hat, coat etc.

[G-BOAF]

Need to be careful this doesn't reflect badly on mainline steam. Someone was not communicating properly, or acting on communication. Blame should be directed accordingly.

[009 micro modeller]

How much capacity on the rail network around Victoria is there anyway for railtours?

[phil-b259]

How much capacity on the rail network around Victoria is there anyway for railtours?

 

A surprisingly large amount (in the context of London termini) outside of peak hours. Of course when one of the premium operators (VOSE) has its main engineering base only a couple of miles down the line then it simplifys things a bit....as does easy access to the WLL...

Edited June 1, 2018 by phil-b259

[rab]

Need to be careful this doesn't reflect badly on mainline steam. Someone was not communicating properly, or acting on communication. Blame should be directed accordingly.

I've edited the title, hope it reads better now.

[ejstubbs]

Similar thing happened when Tornado was doing the SRPS Fife Circle railtour back in 2015: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/fire-at-waverley-turns-out-to-be-steam-train-1-3822129.

 

I had just come off the morning run and was waiting on Waverley Bridge to get some shots of the afternoon run departing when the fire appliances turned up.  At the time I couldn't believe that it was because of Tornado, but it was confirmed to have been that in the later media reports.

 

That was members of the public calling the fire service, though, not an automatic smoke detector.  So even turning off the detectors (which I imagine would need to be covered by a fairly comprehensive risk assessment) won't be a guarantee of no false alarms on the day!  (There have been steam railtours through Waverley before and since without incident, so it looks like that incident can be chalked up as a one-off.)

[stewartingram]

Even worse, we had in Cambridgeshire a call from a motorist of a fire alongside the A1 a few years ago. The site was Wansford locoshed, NVR, with a loco raising steam. The caller was a Fire Officer from the local Fire Service, I heard.....

 

 

Stewart

[rab]

Similar thing happened when Tornado was doing the SRPS Fife Circle railtour back in 2015: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/fire-at-waverley-turns-out-to-be-steam-train-1-3822129.

 

I had just come off the morning run and was waiting on Waverley Bridge to get some shots of the afternoon run departing when the fire appliances turned up. At the time I couldn't believe that it was because of Tornado, but it was confirmed to have been that in the later media reports.

 

That was members of the public calling the fire service, though, not an automatic smoke detector. So even turning off the detectors (which I imagine would need to be covered by a fairly comprehensive risk assessment) won't be a guarantee of no false alarms on the day! (There have been steam railtours through Waverley before and since without incident, so it looks like that incident can be chalked up as a one-off.)

I've seen this happen more than once at Plymouth,

with railtour locos returning to the station after servicing,

and being held under the car park which bridges the line.

The fireman is busy preparing his fire for the return trip,

probably not too aware of his surroundings.

The smoke starts coming out of the open sides of the car park, and before you know it, someone has dialled 999,

probably due to there previously having been cars deliberately set on fire in the car park.

The guys from the fire service didn't seem to mind,

they hung around to see the train depart

Edited June 1, 2018 by rab

[009 micro modeller]

I wonder if some advance warnings to members of the public could have averted a couple of these incidents...

[caradoc]

The Fire Service were also called when smoke was seen coming from Falkirk High Tunnel......shortly after a steam loco had passed through. And more than once, calls from motorists on the A74 about a train on fire on the nearby WCML, when the Railgrinder was working (although to be fair, that can be a spectacular sight !)

[009 micro modeller]

A few years ago I think the AC electric group hired an 86 to Network Rail to operate a track recording train into Stansted Airport station as it was thought diesel locos would set the smoke alarms off.

[ejstubbs]

Other news reports have emerged suggesting that the detectors were isolated when the railtour train was in the station, but the fumes turned out to have hung around longer than anticipated after it departed*, so the alarm went off when the detectors were re-activated.

 

* I wonder if that could have been related to the very still, humid weather that we've had recently.  The other day when I went to look at the surface pressure map in the Met Office web site, I thought it was broken - I had to zoom right out to see any isobars!

[jjb1970]

I dunno about kettles but when I go for my morning train to work the diesel exhaust from the unit sitting in Bletchley to work the Bedford service can be shocking.