Hundreds of Indian rail passengers got more than they had bargained
for when the driver of their train asked them to get out and push.
It took more than half an hour to move the stalled electric train 12
feet so that it touched live overhead wires and was able to resume its
journey, officials said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred in the eastern state of Bihar on Tuesday after a
passenger pulled the train's emergency chain and it halted in a
"neutral zone," a short length of track where there is no power in the
overhead wires.
"In so many years of service in the railways, I have never come across
such a bizarre incident," said Deepak Kumar Jha, a spokesman for
Indian Railways.
A train's momentum usually allows it to continue moving through
neutral zones.
India's rail network carries more than 15 million people daily -- more
than the combined population of Norway and Sweden -- but its safety
record often comes in for criticism.
Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I first scanned the headline of
this story, my first thought was it was a report on either Amtrack or
Chicago Transit Authority, but then I remembered that CTA has a method
which eliminates the need for passengers to 'get out and push'. In
CTA's instance, the lines which operate at ground-level with third
rails for power, when the track crosses a street somewhere, the third
rail is discontinued for about a half-block on either side of the
street crossing. Normally, the momentum of the train's movement keeps
the train rolling along until the place where the third rail resumes
on the other side of the street. Rarely that does not happen, and the
train 'stops short' of the station, meaning it was going slow enough
to dribble to a complete stop in the intersection. The train's
conductor gets off the train with a long metal rod which he touches to
a certain place under the train, and the other end of the rod to a
place on the third rail, causing the power to resume. Now the motorman
(engineer) inches the train along very slowly a few feet to where the
train itself makes third rail contact once again; the conductor
removes the long metal rod, folds it up, puts it away, gets back on
the train and off they go again.
Back in 1950-51, somewhere around that time, CTA had trolley busses
running on the east/west streets on the north side, but still had
street cars running on the major north/south streets. As naughty
children, a favorite game we played (I was nine or ten years old) was
entitled 'Stall the trolley bus' and it went like this: We kids went
to the corner of Western and Lawrence Avenues, a busy street intersec-
tion. The trolley bus _always_ stopped at that corner to pick up and
discharge passengers and/or wait for the green light to continue. The
object was when the bus was stopped there, sneak very quietly behind
the trolley, reach up and pull down the catenary pole, without the bus
driver seeing you do it. Extra 'points' were awarded if the kid was
quick enough to wait until the trolley had just gotten restarted and
then in the wink of an eye, yank down that catenary so that the
momentum had the slowly moving trolley bus coast out into the center
of Western Avenue and _then_ come to a halt. Even 'better' were the
times when a Western Avenue street car was coming along (which also
ran with catenary or overhead wires) and cause the bus to stall on the
street car tracks.
Either way, we knew that the instant we caused the trolley to stall,
the driver of same, a belicose man with a large red nose would come
storming off the trolley yelling about 'the little bastards!' but
we of course were long since gone, having run off to hide and laugh.
Now on this one day, we had been 'fortunate enough' to see the Western
Avenue streetcar coming, and when the Lawrence Avenue light went green
(in order for the trolley to start moving) naturally the Western light
went red. Since an experienced trolley driver could reconnect his
catenary in a couple minutes, these incidents were always good for two
or three red/green light cycles, but this old gentleman had trouble
getting his catenary re-established; him sitting in the center of
Lawrence Avenue in the middle of the street with a dead motor, cars on
Western Avenue trying to creep around him, all honking their horns,
the passengers on the trolley sitting placidly, reading their
newspapers, blissfully unaware -- one would think -- of the commotions
around them; the Western Avenue streetcar pulled up next to him
thinking any second the bus driver would re-establish his contact with
the wires and leave. Meanwhile, the little bastards were in hiding,
almost spastic with laughter because of the trouble they had caused.
Now traffic is backed up in all four directions, everyone honking at
the streetcar and the trolley bus to get out of the way so they could
get past. Finally the Western streetcar driver gets off, and walks
casually over to the Lawrence trolley bus, he and the bus driver
_stand there in the street chatting_ (neither one of them apparently
could give a damn about the traffic backup at this point) and the
streetcar driver showed the bus driver how to get the catenary
re-established; they both walk back to their respective vehicles and
after the trolley clears the tracks and drives away, the streetcar
does the same; after ten or so green/red light changes during this
delay, it still took a couple minutes to get the get the intersection
cleared out. Meanwhile a second trolley bus had pulled in on Lawrence
Avenue, none of us had the nerve to try that stunt again twice on the
same day. PAT]
Reuters News Wire (