The independent investigation into the failure of 5 Eurostar Trains in the Channel Tunnel has now been posted online. It is available here
Independent Report on Eurostar
It seems very through.
Report had several conclusions and highlights.
-
Snow was the starting cause of all train failures however how it caused failures in each train set occurred as different order of failures.
-
Snow got into various electronics and shorted them out at different rates.
-
Snow filtration not sufficient.
-
Type of snow was not disclosed. That to my mind is very important. I suspect it may have been fine powder however the temperatures do not entirely support that supposition. (-3 degrees celsius 27F)
-
Inability to deploy PANs manually caused loss of passenger services. Have only electronic control ( shorted out) of PANs.
A. AMTRAK and the loco manufacturers should take close note of these failures to be sure there is not the possibility of this also occurring. NJ Transit could have these problems in the new ARC tunnels since they will not have any surface access once entering the tunnel from NJ. Any guess what ARC tunnel temp will be?
B. what are the evacuation plans for the east river, north rirver, and B&P tunnels?
I’m doing this from a hazy memory that I read somewhere. In the 1950’s Pennsylvania RR had a problem that caused problems with all their GG1’s during a winter storm. They designed a fix that was specified on all subsequent orders of electric railway equipment on the NE corridor.
Rgds IGN
In 1958 there were two 18 inch+ blizzards in the Mid-Atlantic area. One was a very small grained crystalline form of snow which is the one that caused the problems with the Pennsy GG-1’s and brought their electrical operations to a near stop. The other storm was with a very heavy wet snow that pulled the catenary wires down in many location and also brought their operations to a near stop.
One storm was in the middle of February and the other was in the middle of March. I believe the crystalline storm was in February, but I could be mistaken.
If I remember correctly the crystalline, or the powder, form of snow which sidelined many of the Pennsy’s GG-1’s occurred in February, 1958 at a time when the temperatures tend to be lower and the snow flakes contain less moisture. The fix was to locate the air intakes higher so they wouldn’t take in the powdery snow that would be kicked up by the locomotives.