Fire in the Chunnel.
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Small fire: Continent cut off
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Small fire: Continent cut off
More to the point putting them on trains WITH HOLES IN. This was the 'cheaper' option and has the effect of fanning the flames of the (so far) 3 fires that have occurred on vehicles on the trains, this being the second serious one.
There’s a lot being made about the ‘chemicals’ involved here and why are they being carried through the tunnel but they’re missing the point - phenol would not cause this fire. The point is you shouldn’t have open wagons. Suspicion is currently being levelled at an overheated brake. Again without the fanning, I can't see this causing a fire otherwise. They are quite common occurances.
Given the involvement of Dangerous Goods it will make it more difficult to deal with the fire not least as the fire crews will require gas tight chemical protection suits and fire kit. Given the conditions in that tunnel you can stand about 5 minutes of that before you become a boil-in-the-bag body.
This is gonna burn for a while and create a lot of damage. I’d book a flight instead Crusoe.
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Small fire: Continent cut off
Anyone know where I can change Euros back into Sterling without paying commission?
Marks and Spencer - and the Post Office. If they haven't all been shut round your way.
Have you thought about the train / foot passenger on ferry / train option, by the way?
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Small fire: Continent cut off
Bill, does "open wagons" include shipping containers on flatbeds ("intermodal" in US speak).
Those are the standard in Switzerland, which is in process of building a 60 km long tunnel to supplement the Gottardo. Given the problems that they have had with road tunnels, I'd hope that they would have learned their lessons.
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Containers do go through the tunnel, and aren't particularly flammable I don't think, but this incident was a Roll-on Roll-off service, which conveys lorries. They are in open wagons, rather like cages, as opposed to the car-carrying vehicles, which are closed. (see the images here).
The car carrying shuttles through the tunnels in Switzerland generally have open wagons, I'm pretty sure.
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Small fire: Continent cut off
ursus arctos wrote:
Those are the standard in Switzerland, which is in process of building a 60 km long tunnel to supplement the Gottardo. Given the problems that they have had with road tunnels, I'd hope that they would have learned their lessons.
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UA: they are designed like this:
So as you can see it is basically justa flatbed with heavily ventilated sides. Perfect for fanning fires.
Rather than their DG policy, I think after a third fire and the second in which heavy tunnel damage has taken place they'll need to rethink the design of these carriages.
P.S. The headline of the BBC web article I took that off was "Chunnel trains 'safer than ever' - Eurotunnel". Yeah... right!
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Small fire: Continent cut off
Jimmy Bignutz wrote:
Yeah, I think they dropped the name Chunnel at about the time it opened. The word just makes me think of the made-up film in Seinfeld.
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