dowlingm
Senior Member
Not a great read for VIA https://todaysnorthumberland.ca/202...-rescue-for-over-200-people-trapped-on-train/
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Bordercollie
Senior Member
So nobody called emergency services? Is that standard procedure? It would not have been pleasant but they could have had buses meet passengers there and take them to Cobourg....come on really?
EnviroTO
Senior Member
I really hope Transport Canada does something about this. It seems like very recently there was a GO train under similar circumstances and there clearly needs to be rules and enforcement when it comes to how long a train can trap people, and the plans passenger rail companies must have in place to deal with situations like these.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
In the Netherlands, ProRail (national railway infrastructure owner/operator) has numerous response teams stationed across the country who respond to incidents on the railway. In most of their videos I've seen, they start by making an evacuation plan for the passengers on the train. Their vans have various methods for evacuating trains, including ladders, ramps, platforms.
Here's a video where they tour one of their vans, which has lights and sirens in order to arrive on scene quickly. They also have a larger truck which follows at normal speed to bring more supplies.
Unfortunately there is no English.
Note that these responders respond to incidents from all train service operators (NS, DB, Arriva, Eurostar, Thalys, etc), not just NS.
Here's an example of them responding to an incident (selected semi-randomly). Lots more like this on their channel.
Here's a video where they tour one of their vans, which has lights and sirens in order to arrive on scene quickly. They also have a larger truck which follows at normal speed to bring more supplies.
Unfortunately there is no English.
Note that these responders respond to incidents from all train service operators (NS, DB, Arriva, Eurostar, Thalys, etc), not just NS.
Here's an example of them responding to an incident (selected semi-randomly). Lots more like this on their channel.
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Bordercollie
Senior Member
Something like this should be a legal requirement
dowlingm
Senior Member
It would be interesting to know what VIA’s policies about evacuation are - the temperature conditions were severe, the incident at night. It is understandable that the crew did not want people out on the tracks where they may become injured or separated, creating a potential liability where remaining on the train did not.
But the seeming failure by VIA operations centre to engage with local emergency services is inexplicable. Those services - to the extent available given other challenges on the roads etc. - could have worked to ensure the track was secured and arranged lighting for safe passage to the nearest crossing or access. As one of the busiest rail corridors in the country one would think that a certain amount of training and planning is done by the response services along the line, for incidents even more severe.
But the seeming failure by VIA operations centre to engage with local emergency services is inexplicable. Those services - to the extent available given other challenges on the roads etc. - could have worked to ensure the track was secured and arranged lighting for safe passage to the nearest crossing or access. As one of the busiest rail corridors in the country one would think that a certain amount of training and planning is done by the response services along the line, for incidents even more severe.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Evacuation alone is pointless unless you have a place to evacuate them to, and the means to get them there, which comes back to buses being available. Responders also have to consider the ability of passengers to navigate rough ground and whether people are dressed for it.
Northern Light
Superstar
Angry response for what I read, but a thank you for bringing it to our attention.
I'm not going to copy the whole article, which is brief and very much worthy of a read at the link above. But this bit needs to be brought forward:
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ssiguy2
Senior Member
That maybe true but that still won't come even remotely close to $12 billion.
IF the line becomes a true HSR corridor with speeds up to 300 km/hr then I think it would be money well spent. That, however, is not the plan but rather a side comment from a politician and we all know how trustworthy they are. There is NO mention of high speed rail on either the VIA or Transport Canada sites so until it's official, you can assume it's a lie until proven otherwise. IF the line will be high speed with piotential of 300 km/hr and at least 250km/hr on at least 50% of the track then go for it. It would be a far better return on investment for Ottawa and the higher speeds mean they can run more trips {and hence higher revenue} with little extra expense due to faster turn-around times.
If this is the case, then they would be far more likely to be able to get a private company to fork over some funds for a PPP. It would also assure that the line doesn't stop at Union but rather Windsor via London as these are the 4th and 6th busiest stations in the network and connect to a city of 4 million and actually have the highest rate of return on revenue of any service VIA provides. Any private company would probably demand that the line go to Windsor so as not to lose out on that high ridership on a relatively small distance.
kEiThZ
Superstar
And you are certain it won't be $12B because?
The original estimate was $4B for TOM. With $2B for electrification. Then Montréal-Quebec for added. And there were additional promises for faster speeds. Assuming $12B for ~800 km works out to $15M/km. That is very much in the range for rail corridors that are being upgraded and electrified. It's definitely not enough for lots of new corridors or high speed rail (likely in the $30-50M/km range).
smallspy
Senior Member
This is a ludicrous idea.
What makes you think that anyone coming from Toronto or Montreal - in the middle of a raging snowstorm that resulted in the 401 being entirely closed, let's remember - would manage to get to the site before it was cleaned up?
What makes you think that they didn't?
VIA"s own operations department has an open line to the RTCs. Needless to say, the RTCs had their hands full with what was happening on the ground, and I can only suspect that they didn't have the time for additional calls from VIA.
Dan
wopchop
Building Toronto
Oh, they didn't have time? Come on. This train was sitting a few kilometres from Cobourg station, but nobody had time to deal with a train full of stranded passengers? It is not like this was a remote location. This should never have gone on for as long as it did.
Northern Light
Superstar
In fairness, Dan.......
We have an article above showing that at no point did VIA (or the RTC) contact emergency services in Coburg who could and ultimately did respond, after a passenger forced his way off the train and told a police officer in person. I'm not letting either VIA or the RTC off the hook. Particularly when it has now been stated that there were diabetic passengers on board lacking insulin. That certainly appears to reach the threshold for Criminal Negligence if the inaction results in harm.
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In respect of direct situation management, this is not my field of expertise,
However, I did note @reaperexpress post above on how this type of situation is supposed to be handled in the Netherlands, and it certainly sounds a good deal more organized and different than what happened here:
VIA Rail
Not a great read for VIA https://todaysnorthumberland.ca/2022/12/25/exclusive-port-hope-man-comes-to-the-rescue-for-over-200-people-trapped-on-train/
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Edit to add:
In an unrelated story, except that its an example of how others coped with a difficult and unexpected situation due to the weather, about 100 customers were stranded at a Walmart in Chatham during the storm.
Granted, the requisite needs were on hand.
But the staff/in-store management made the decision to feed everyone free of charge, grocery staff prepared sandwiches and other deli items, they also opened all their air mattresses and the pumps and blew them up for people to sleep and opened bedding and even video games and gaming systems to keep kids entertained.
Not clear in the story what level of management signed off on what is likely a write-off well over tens of thousands of dollars in inventory, but either they got someone senior on the line quickly or they decided to just act and worry about what the big bosses thought later.
Good for them. I have no time for Walmart for a host of reasons, but on this one day, their local staff got something very right.
I'm sure the VIA train in question didn't have the same resources available, but they surely had cell phone service to phone 911.
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I also noted with interest, that another VIA train caught in the delays, the story to which I linked above, the crew had trees that had fallen in front of the train; the crew got axes and went out and lumberjacked the trees, then kept going.
Another example of innovate on the fly, screw the protocol, get it done, of which I whole heartedly approve.
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crs1026
Superstar
Absolutely true. Nobody was going to reach that train from afar. But somebody was in charge of that train. It’s curious how little decisionmaking authority the chief-of-train position held, and how little influence they had with the headquarters….., and how little effort was made to empower them or assist them to protect the passengers. Just do what we tell you and try to sound cheerful with your passengers, but you are on your own out there, and don’t make any decisions or we will jump all over you.
I see a great similarity to airline ops, in that in theory the pilot of an aircraft is a powerful person with whom the buck stops to a huge degree. But when a plane arrives and is told to wait on the tarmac for hours before debarking, can only shrug and nestle down in their cockpit seat and pass the matter off as “airline policy”
I don’t know what VIA’s operations center looks like, but I have toured Amtrak’s. There are certainly people (assuming they hadn’t been excused for the holidays) watching over the operation.and monitoring what’s happening on board specific trains or routes. They have a chain of command and protocols that allow them to raise issues. And communications protocols that lets them pass information to trains and to passengers. (I also know that railway RTC centers may “take the phone off the hook” when they are in the midst of some other issue.…. but VIA has the home phone number of higher ups).
We don’t know whether VIA‘s people attempted to raise an alarm and weren’t responded to, or whether somebody said we are too busy to care, or whether VIA simply decided to let things sit.
Again, we have had this discussion regarding people held on GO trains during police investigations. Some delays will require passengers to just sit and suck it up, but when basic health and safety ceases to be assured the situation rises in priority - in extreme cases, overtaking the priority of other things such as police investigations or running freight trains.
The Corridor is a morning to midnight proposition. On any given day, some trains may not make it in by midnight. A late train or two that gets in at 02:00 will not trigger concern, but when it is apparent that a trainj will not arrive until the following day at best, with no clear plan to achieve that, one would expect bells to ring. And keep ringing.
If there isn’t a clear protocol that states when protection of passengers overtakes running of freight, there ought to be, as a matter of statutory mandate. (Sorry, CN, this is part of being the unwilling landlord to passenger trains). I would apply equal principles to air travel - really bothers me how airlines can hold people on board without even letting them move around. Perhaps after a defined number of hours, or based on other criteria such as status of hvac, light, toilets, food, and medical vulnerability, a ”shelter in place” scenario must become a “rescue” scenario and handed over to the local fire chief.
It’s just lucky that the tree didn’t snag a HEP cable.
- Paul
PS - The part of this episode that I can’t get past is how the whole thing unfolded about one football field away from a subdivision and only a block or two away from a fast food joint that probably would have loved to feed a couple hundred people, even in a blizzard.
An empowered train manager could have trudged the hundred yards, started knocking on doors, and offering residents VIA points (or cash) if a couple dozen people could use their washroom. Or phoned around to see if some local fast food joint could rustle up and deliver 200 quarter pounders. And again, the operations center ought to have been able to do that for them based on preplanned protocols and data about local support options..
The passenger who bailed and started walking was not an idiot or a renegade. Apparently he knew exactly where he was, and his exit was not wandering around in the wilderness. He was using his own set of problem solving skills.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
If I had been in that situation I probably would have walked off after a couple hours as well, given that there were lots of options within a short walk (restaurants, houses etc). It wouldn't be the first time I wandered around a city during a blizzard. However from what we now know, that may have been a bad decision given that Cobourg had a power failure at the time. So in some ways the people in the train were actually better off than the residents of Cobourg, since they still had heat and light. But those buildings still presumably had food, water and functioning toilets so when VIA realized that it would be many hours before a rescue train could arrive, then those options should have become very relevant.
The rate at which people consume food and water, and fill up the toilets, is relatively consistent and thus predictable. VIA knows how much food/water is aboard, and they know how long it's been since the toilets were emptied. Based on these numbers, every VIA train should always have an implicit timer running for the maximum time customers can shelter aboard. Response plans do take into account the maximum allowable work time for locomotive engineers, and similarly they should also take into account the maximum time that the passengers can remain aboard the train. We have had multiple incidents on multiple railways where passengers have been left on a train beyond the point where it continued to function as an effective shelter, so there appears to be a systemic issue here.
It's not VIA's fault that there was a blizzard, or that the CN line was blocked, and it might not have been their fault that a rescue train couldn't reach the stranded train. But they need to take responsibility at the very least for the lack of communication and continued misinformation their (automated) systems were providing people both inside and outside that train.
This reminds me of how VIA consistently blames CN for the fact that they have appalling on-time performance. Yes, CN is resonsible for many if not most delays, but VIA needs to take responsibility for the delays caused by their own boarding procedures, as well as the fact that many of their schedules are unrealistic to the point of being physically impossible (e.g. VIA 87 between Kitchener and London).