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Not many things manage to combine a fun afternoon, with an entirely new set of perceptions and some training that might save your life – that's the HSBC Coach Roll Over Rig
It was the Pre-series Advanced Passenger Train with only one door per side that kindled my interest in methods of escape from vehicles resting at an angle or on their side. Given that you have a good chance of surviving a high energy crash in a Mk 3, I have also wondered how difficult it would be to escape when that heavy slam door with its drop light window and outside handle was above your head.
Now, courtesy HSBC Rail and Serco Operations, I have found out.
HSBC Rail's Coach Roll Over Rig(CROR) had its genesis in Lord Cullen's recommendations on escape from vehicles in Part 1 of the Ladbroke Grove inquiry. In fact several accident inquiries from the Maidenhead IC125 fire to Great Heck have been concerned about escape and evacuation.
For example, Recommendation 44 in Prof Uff's Southall accident Inquiry referred to providing ‘the best practicable means of emergency exit under accident conditions including vehicles lying on their side'. Recommendation 52 added ‘Train crews should be given improved training and briefing on emergency actions, including practical evacuation'.
Most recently, theGreat Heck Inquiry Para 16.5.4 read ‘Owners and operators of Mk IV should participate in the current investigations into means of egress and thereafter ensure that modifications are made to lighting, signage and means of escape'
All worthy stuff, except that there was no way of studying and evaluating conditions in a coach over at an angle. Of course you can have highly realistic computer generated digital models. But looking at screen is not the same as finding out in real life how you move around, how you open doors, how you smash windows and then climb out.
Enter Peter Adldrige, Head of HSBC Rail. His company's budget includes a sum of money for ‘non-specific safety spend'.
HSBC Rail also has some lively engineers, not least my old chum Nick Swift who has been a leading light in demonstrating, through real life testing, that cup & cone, which looked good in digital form, doesn't actually work very well. Nick was given some of the ‘non-specific safety spend' and went away and turned it into a specific safety benefit in the form of a full size rail vehicle which could be rolled over onto its side through 100 degrees.
Responsibility for turning the concept into a working rig was awarded to Serco Operations which now manage the CROR facility for HSBC. The rig is based at a Ministry of defence site near Basingstoke .
To create the rig, one of HSBC's Mk 2 coaches was taken off its bogies and gutted so that it could be bolted into a steel frame or cradle. A First Class interior was then installed.
Four ‘J'-shaped supports formed from square section hollow tube provide the sides of the cradle. The bottom of the J is bolted to the floor of the coach and the vertical attached to the bodyside. Longitudinal girders complete the rigid frame which locates the body.
With the coach upright, the floor is at the normal above-rail height with the bottom of each J-shaped support resting on a U shaped track on the ground. An endless wire rope is attached to the top of the frame above roof level and runs via pulleys to the drum on a motor powered winch.To tilt the coach, the winch winds in one end of the wire rope and lets out the other, pulling the top of the frame over in a controlled manner. The complete section rotates smoothly on the curve of the J section which run in their tracks. The winch can be stopped with the body at any position between vertical and 100 degrees. In fact, the rig was so well balanced you could roll it over manually, but the winch provides positive control
So there I was on a sunny afternoon in deepest Hampshire with Peter Aldridge and Nick Swift, being given a safety briefing by long-time MR reader Bruce Knights of Serco Operations. Bruce explained that we would sit down in the coach which would then be winched over to 40 degrees from the vertical. We would then be free to get up and move around. ‘You may be disoriented' he warned.
‘Not me', I thought. I have raced sailing dinghies, which can go through odd gyrations, I have spun cars on test tracks and ended up pointing the right way, I now fly light planes. Yes, I felt queasy in the Advanced Passenger Train, but disoriented by being tipped over in a coach? I don't think so.
And I still didn't think so as the winch was stopped and I sat there at an angle of 40 degrees leaning against the vehicle side. Then Nick Swift stood up and immediately my perception of vertical and horizontal vanished. All the visual cues were wrong. Reader, I was indeed disoriented.
As I got up my senses and brain began to organise this new world, where you walked along the edges of seats. But imagine how much harder it would be in the aftermath of a derailment.
We were at the same angle as Coach G at Hatfield, but we weren't shocked, perhaps thrown around, perhaps hit by flying luggage. There were no injured, no blood, no cries, no smoke.
Following Peter Aldridge I made my way to the end vestibule. I tried to crawl up to the door above, only to find that at 40 degrees there is not enough friction for your hands and knees.
You have to clamber, finding footholds. Peter, being a mountaineer was good at this. But how do you open the door, with its outside handle?
Nick ‘the cat' Swift is a veteran of the rig. He showed how you put you feet on the door jamb and the corridor connection and brace you back against the door. With the droplight down, you reach behind you through the window to turn the handle. Then you lift the door open with your posterior.
Both Peter and I tried it and succeeded, but it was very hard work. And on a hot day we were all sweating profusely.
Time for a break, so we walked back along the interior. The knack is to walk along the lower edges of the windows. Everyday features have a new use – litter bins make a good foot rest. A final revelation was the difficulty in getting out of the ‘underneath' end door at this angle. Experienced rig uses reckon 40-45 degrees tilt is the most difficult to handle.
After a cold drink, it was back into the rig to be rotated to 70 degrees. Even though I knew what was coming, there was still some slight disorientation, but it soon vanished.
While it was now much easier to scramble up the seats to the upper windows, the vestibule door test was even harder. Droplight windows are spring-loaded to counterbalance the weight of the glass.
At 70 degrees, there is little weight in the normal direction of movement, but the spring force is the same. Despite a much firmer foothold,I struggled to open the window, which involved pulling almost horizontally with your arms above your head.
Finally, we cranked over to 90 degrees. The brain had no orientation problems with the coach obviously on its side. Getting to the top vestibule door was actually easier, although all the spring force had to be overcome to move the droplight.
Peter Aldridge opened the door relatively easily, although as we explored this new world, Nick Swift climbed into the now horizontal toilet and reckoned that it might be easier to escape via the toilet window.
HSBC Rail were keen for me to try the patented K-Tex egress system which is fitted to windows in CROR. More on this in another issue, but briefly the K-Tex module is mounted in the cant rail above the window.
In the module is a block carrying two sharp chisels, one for each pane of toughened glass in a double glazed window. Energy is stored in a powerful spring. When you pull the operating handle, the spring is released, hitting a rotating anvil which strikes the chisels driving them into the top edges of the window panes, which then shatter.
And it works. And has been well thought out, including safety devices to stop misuse and back-up power to ensure it is working when you need it, plus a load cell in the spring which provides a self test that there is enough stored energy when you turn the device on with a carriage key. It can even emit directional ‘white noise' to help people find the broken window.
So, slide back the cover by breaking a tag. This starts a warning bleep to alert people to misuse. Pull the handle and ‘bang' a shattered window ready to be knocked out – I used a seat cushion.
To compare and contrast, I was then told to find a hammer and break a window manually. Easy, you might think.
You might and you would be wrong. The coach had been returned to 45 degrees for these rests and I clambered along like a veteran. The hammer was on the end bulkhead and came out after the cover was broken by a sharp blow from the heel of a shoe.
Which window to break? Obvious, the one next to the hammer with toughed glass in both panes. But, this was the up-side window, which would mean climbing up the seats followed by a shower of glass particles on those below.
So I slid to the ‘down-side' window and struck it smartly in the upper corner in the approved manner. It shattered in a most satisfying manner.
Having cleared away a space I hit the outer pane. It did not shatter because it was laminated. I whacked it half a dozen times to weaken it, then one of the site team in work boots was able to kick out a section of the laminated glass.
So, a hugely informative afternoon on a test rig which should make a massive contribution to improving rail safety. And at a total cost of £38,000 the rig has to be most cost effective piece of safety kit around.
Here are some additional perceptions from that afternoon, noted at random.
A 1970s interior like the Mk2 has various nooks, crannies and ledges which make excellent foot rests and hand holds with the vehicle over at an angle. Modern trains have super smooth interiors, all curves and no edges.
Hand holds complying with the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations may not be much use in an escape situation.
Tables are stresses for crashworthiness, but what happens when a 15 stone person is standing on the edge during an escape?
If the disabled toilet is on the lower side of a tilted coach how do you climb over it to the vestibule?
Carpets are largely held down by gravity, how do you stop them coming loose with the vehicle on its side?
Roof escape hatches would only be of use with the vehicle on its side, and even then getting out would not be easy since the opening would be restricted by the need for structural strength to protect passengers during the accident.
Clearly CROR brings a new perspective to engineering development. But I reckon the biggest benefit will come from its use as a training simulator for railway staff, train crew in particular, and emergency services.
For train crew, a two hour course would provide the opportunity to experience a coach on its side and receive training in evacuation, including opening ‘up-side' and ‘down'side' doors, breaking windows and organising escape.
Of course, you are training for an event most staff will never experience in the longest career. But when the rare day comes and your working environment is on its side with passengers in shock and pain looking to you for help, having experienced the disorientation, having practiced egress at odd angles, means that you can respond faster and more professionally.
Equally, emergency services will be able to practice getting a passenger with severe whiplash, strapped to a stretcher along a sloping coach and develop in advanced, through trial and error, the best way of lifting the victim out.
You can put blinds over the windows to simulate darkness – and find out weaknesses in the emergency lighting. You can pump in non-toxic smoke. For a major user, the interior could be modified to represent a different class of rolling stock. Or a manufacturer could provide a body shell and have a custom CROE
With all the facilities on site, including briefing rooms and a railway network, the rig can form part of a major exercise. One is planned for September which will bring together staff from train operators and Railtrack who will have to deal with a simulated emergency.
One scenario would be to report a derailment. Staff could then be sent to a location on the railway line which passes close to CROR. There they would find the rig on its side, with members of the Casualties Union representing the injured. It could be the ultimate derailment exercise.
As you may have gathered I thought this rig was a major advanced in safety engineering. Its commercial application is being managed for HSBC by Serco Operations who have an advertisement in these pages. Personally, I can't see how train operators and train builders, not to mention safety legislators, can't not use it for training and development.