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Eurotunnel closed due to Fire


Pierre ZFP
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Younger son is booked Eurostar / TGV to Avignon on Saturday.

Having just seen the Ten O'Clock News (still fighting the fire, etc, etc), we've taken the pragmatic view and booked him Flybe ex Southampton.  Not a bad price, given the late booking  - but that price mightn't last long!

Happily no reported injuries (and hopefully not with any of the firefighters).  This could take weeks to get back to normal.  

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i was there yesterday, turned up to get the shuttle back to uk to find the booths closed....

we sat in a queue for an hour before being given a ticket for p & o, and 40 mins later we were boarding.... very impressed.

kim

 

ps as at 7.08 am  the fire isnt out... not be surprised is the tunnel isnt shut for weeks....

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I fail to understand how it can be taking so long to put out a fire in what is a confined space. One standard procedure would be to flood the whole area with C02 which would kill it more or less immediately but clearly no such system is installed.

They may have been able to make their safety case without this thus far but I strongly suspect that might change in the light of this second incident.

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Hopefully, they will have it sorted in 5 weeks time when we travel, in the meantime my sympathies to those caught up in it.

This is the third fire - 2 serious 1 minor. Now I have never heard of this on the ferries or does it happen and it is not reported?

I presume there is the 'bellows' effect on the tunnel of the movement of the train through air and the open sided carriages fanning any flames - perhaps sealed carriages would have been safer and would have contained any fire.

Just been on Eurotunnel website - we decided just before the fire to make a trip in December. There is a very brief non informative notice, posted at 17:25 on the 11th covering the next 12 hours, that services are suspended adjacent to an item headed:

FREIGHT SERVICES - Eurofreight helps you make your delivery commitments with confidence.

Paul

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[quote user="Iceni"]

Happy anniversary, folks. Wot, no conspiracy theorists at work ?

John[/quote]

I had a similar thought. However, even if that was the case perhaps we may never learn the truth like what exactly happened in Toulouse a few years back.[Www]

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Ferry fires do happen but unless they are serious and because they generally cause far less disruption, one intrrupted sailing out os dozens as opposed to the closing of thr tunnel, go largely unreported except perhaps in the local newspapers.

Last year sometime we were evacuated from a Norfolkline ferry awaiting departure from Dover because of a fire on the lorry deck. It was dealt with quite quickly but resulted in a 4 or 5 hour delay. I doubt that made the BBC 6 o'clock news.

What I find particularly worrying about this latest tunnel fire is the presence of a load of toxic chemical, phenol or carbolic acid, which is pretty nasty stuff with a flash point of only 79deg c and could potentially have killed everybody in the vicinity if it had got into the atmosphere. IMO this sort of material should not be transported by this route but on dedicated freight ferries.

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[quote user="ErnieY"]I fail to understand how it can be taking so long to put out a fire in what is a confined space. One standard procedure would be to flood the whole area with C02 which would kill it more or less immediately but clearly no such system is installed.

They may have been able to make their safety case without this thus far but I strongly suspect that might change in the light of this second incident.

[/quote]

Ernie

Are the lorry carriages still the open mesh type as used before the last fire? If so then it is not a confined space.

I seem to recall that they were recommended to change them as the wind effect of trains passing in the other tunnel fanned the flames.

If they are now enclosed, flooding the compartment with halon or CO2 is not going to be very popular with the drivers next of kin[6]

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The truck carriages are still the open mesh type but the rivers do not spend the crossing in their cabs.  The make the journey in an enclosed compartment carriage at either the front or rear of the train.

I seem to remember (sorry, can't find the article for reference)  that the use of inert gas was dismissed due to various reasons like the space not being enclosed and could hamper rescue services and endanger passengers (eg Eurostar or passenger shuttle which may be in the tunnel at the same time)  so the system is a water deluge but apparently not wholly effective.

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[quote user="ErnieY"] .

What I find particularly worrying about this latest tunnel fire is the presence of a load of toxic chemical, phenol or carbolic acid, which is pretty nasty stuff with a flash point of only 79deg c and could potentially have killed everybody in the vicinity if it had got into the atmosphere. IMO this sort of material should not be transported by this route but on dedicated freight ferries.

[/quote]

MOH worked in freight for many years. Hazardous chemicals were certainly not allowed through the tunnel whern he was employed and I doubt that things have changed at all. So question is - was it incorrectly labelled or is the checking too lax?

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"The truck carriages are still the open mesh type but the drivers do not spend the crossing in their cabs.  The make the journey in an enclosed compartment carriage at either the front or rear of the train".

Quite right Pierre and that was the configuration of the train involved in the fire.  Open mesh carriages allow fires to be detected more easily than an enclosed one. Car transporters are enclosed and carry people in the vehicles, any fire in a car and the carriage can be sealed off.

Funny enough a tunnel is quite a confined space[8-)] and the piston effect of other trains can fan flames horrendously as was found in the London Underground fire at Kings Cross.  Athough the tunnel does have an effective ventilation system and this can be used to dissipate smoke and fumes as its directional its use in a fire would be directed by the Fire brigades. 

What has happened since the last serious fire which proved the original systems of fire detection, incident location and procedures for dealing with such incidents to be totally ineffective, is that the trains now stop in the event of a fire and not try to make a run for the other side which was the original procedure on the grounds that a fire could be dealt with much better on the surface, what they never took into account was that a ferocious fire as broke out on the train in the last serious incident, believed to have been caused  by a flare,  would actually destroy all the detection, fire suppression and communication systems in the tunnel as the train went along.  Like Ernie I am surprised that such a cargo was allowed in the tunnel given the restrictions on pressurised gas, but its purely speculation that this actually is a banned substance as is the actual cause of the fire hot brakes igniting a tyre  On the other point about ferries, no they don't often catch fire but they have been known to roll over and sink with massive loss of life.

It is quite feasible that a service of some kind on Eurostar and the shuttle will be up and running tomorrow, they can as they do in the night, use just the one undamaged tunnel quite safely.

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 Strangely, it was reported on German TV that 'The Truck Tunnel had a minor fire but the Car Tunnel was unaffected and normal service should be resumed today'  Great piece of journalism !

Yes they may well revert to using one tunnel unfortunately the delays may be pretty horrendous.  The Eurostar has priority over other types of traffic due to the huge penalties if it is delayed so I can imagine batches of freight trains following the Eurostar timetable back and forth and a few car trains squeezed in as and when.

I was going to take the tunnel back to the UK next wednesday but decided against it as it was too expensive - got Norfolk Lines for 27€ each way instead.  A good/lucky call for me I think.

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What I do find odd is that some of the press reports are continuing to say that the lorry overturned whilst on the train. I would have thought that was impossible given the clearances on the wagon.

 

It was also noticeable when the spokesman for Eurostar was being interviewed that the jouranlists are still incapable of understanding the different roles played by his company and Eurotunnel. One radio report on the BBC this morning said that although cars and freight could not use the tunnel it was hoped that trains would be able to later today.

I've no idea where you go for reliable reporting these days.

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[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]

 

Yes they may well revert to using one tunnel unfortunately the delays may be pretty horrendous.  The Eurostar has priority over other types of traffic due to the huge penalties if it is delayed so I can imagine batches of freight trains following the Eurostar timetable back and forth and a few car trains squeezed in as and when.

 

[/quote]

The tunnel is really a pair of rail tunnels with two undersea crossovers, each about one third of the way into the tunnel. This means that single track working need only be limited to one third of its length. Sections of track are regularly closed for maintenance without preventing the passage of through traffic. Certainly, there will be delays or reductions in service, but they will be less severe than if the crossovers did not exist.

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Eurotunnel chairman Jacque Gounon - who earlier said they hoped to return to half capacity during Friday - said the north tunnel, where the fire took place, would be closed for several weeks.

The BBC's Europe editor, Mark Mardell, said Mr Gounon would not speculate on the cause of the fire, saying only that nothing had been ruled out or in.

He added an investigation could only begin once the affected area had cooled down enough to enable the removal of the train.

France's transport minister Dominique Bussereau told French radio station Europe-1 the cause appeared to be "something accidental".

 

kim

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JR: By 'confined space' I was referring to the tunnels themselves rather than the carriages. Obviously Co2 would only be released when all personnel were safely accounted for but equally emergency oxygen supplies could be made available.

Ron: In the offshore game we have an acronym ALARP which means' As Low As Reasonably Practicable' which in turn means that risks and mitigations of the different ways of accomplishing a given task are assessed and weighed against each other and the safest method so decided upon. I think under that process the risk of a ferry incident and mitigations against it, sealed decks for containment and lifeboats for escape for instance, would rank it significantly lower than the tunnel.

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Ron: In the offshore game we have an acronym ALARP which means' As Low As Reasonably Practicable' which in turn means that risks and mitigations of the different ways of accomplishing a given task are assessed and weighed against each other and the safest method so decided upon.

Ernie

At the risk of boring the "readers", ALARP is not only used off-shore, its used in a great deal of UK and EU safety legislation.  It is simply the balance of the cost of safeguards in reducing the likelihood of a hazardous event and its outcomes in terms of injury or loss of life to as low as reasonably practicable.  Reasonable being the key word.  In preventing an event that could result in a fatality, the key figure for the transport industry used to be £1.6million.  However making risks ALARP does not prevent accidents happening or prosecutions arising from them, making a system or process ALARP is only a defence, not an automatic acquittal.

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