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Author Topic: News from ... ? It's actually France, as we discover ...  (Read 22373 times)
Chris from Nailsea
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« Reply #30 on: July 06, 2013, 22:39:39 »

Well, I am surprised my clues are unsolved - Google knows the answers.

And after much searching of Google Earth ... Jeez, that was a tough find.  Tongue Wink Grin

Indeed: I, too, spent a lot of time searching, but eventually gave up - rather sooner than bignosemac did, apparently.  Embarrassed
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William Huskisson MP (Member of Parliament) was the first person to be killed by a train while crossing the tracks, in 1830.  Many more have died in the same way since then.  Don't take a chance: stop, look, listen.

"Level crossings are safe, unless they are used in an unsafe manner."  Discuss.
stuving
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« Reply #31 on: July 06, 2013, 23:22:19 »

That's the 'Maison des syndicats' (union offices) in Nantes, formerly the Gare de Nantes-Etat.

And after much searching of Google Earth I think I can say with some confidence that the first and second pictures are of Gare de Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie on the Atlantic coast.

http://goo.gl/maps/kfipu

Jeez, that was a tough find.  Tongue Wink Grin

Yes, well done. I shall open the (virtual) humidor and offer you an equally virtual and entirely smoke-free cigar. But not, please, an e-cigar.

Sure, St Gilles is a bit obscure, but I thought the clues for Nantes would be easy enough.

Put "airport france protest" into Google and it comes back with Notre-Dame-des-Landes straight off. The "A^roport du Grand Ouest" (a grandiose way of saying it's meant to serve Rennes too) is a replacement for Nantes-Altantique, on the grounds that it has reached its capacity. I've always found it virtually deserted.

Then there were the heavy hints about the tram-train. There is already one line, to Clisson (about 25 km). That's what passes for the main line to Bordeaux, so the tram-trains replace local trains, and have to use the same platform heights as the longer-distance trains. The end of one platform at Nantes has, however been lowered. But what stands out is that the ability of a tram-train to run on the street is not being exploited here.

The new line reopens a longer railway line (about 60 km) to Ch^teaubriant, closed in 1980. The rest of the line onward to Rennes is still open, but apparently the rebuilt line will not connect to it. The tram-train runs out through Nantes on one of two remaining railway tracks, beside an existing Nantes tram line built on two more previous tracks. As I said, they cross it but do not connect (see picture of crossing at their shared station - the track with the barrier across it is for tram-trains, the others for trams). This seems to me to rather remove the point of tram-trains, though on this line it does at least run on roads for a short distance. 

The service planned is rather limited - 7 per day full length, then 16 and 23 per day for shorter stretches from Nantes (27 and 15 km). I have not yet found how long the full 60 km will take - but note that the train-trains from Rennes (about 54 km) take well over an hour. Mind you, the fastest trains between Nantes and Rennes (100 km for an indolent crow) take 74 minutes. You can see why there is a plan to build a new line via the new airport linking Nantes to Rennes. Eventually.

So one of the parallels to look at is line re-openings. In the French case these were often closed a lot more recently, and the track was very rarely lifted. That ought to make it a lot easier to reopen them. RFF's interactive network map still shows these disused lines, which suggests that they are regarded as lines that just happen to have no trains and consequently are not maintained.

This whole ... business was triggered by Red Squirrel's observation that, in a short list of notably green-leaning cities, Nantes is closest in size to Bristol. It has a lot of geographical similarities too, and (partly as a result) historical ones - including the unfortunate one of a similar involvement (half a million souls) in the slave trade. As I was going to be here, I thought I would look for parallels and comparisons. Is Nantes and its region a transport nirvana, in any way, or is it just the grass (that some tram lines run through) being greener?

I hope no-one thinks I have been wasting their time unduly - bearing in mind that anyone who takes on one of these challenges must want to waste some of their time. I shall add a few more parallels I have found - so it should be informative at least.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2013, 23:37:07 by stuving » Logged
LiskeardRich
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« Reply #32 on: July 07, 2013, 11:46:28 »

I was only in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie last July, albeit briefly whilst we were staying in the area. We were camping, and had a few nights in St Jean De Monts, and a few nights in La Tranche sur mer, due to lack of availability for our entire trip at one of the camp sites.
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stuving
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« Reply #33 on: July 07, 2013, 17:22:49 »

Level crossing alarm signal?

My flat overlooked the railway on its way out of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie station, between two level crossings (both out of view). The first is at a little-used entrance to the port, just at the end of the platform, the other is a bigger road junction and is just after the line reduces to one track and leaves the station completely. Usually I would hear the warning bell, which stops when the barriers are down.

Last Saturday, as the 8:15 train was leaving, the bell continued intermittently (on/off about 3 seconds each) and the train stopped just past the last signal (in picture 1). I went down and could see the barriers down at the first crossing but up at the other (picture 2). After a minute or so the driver walked through the train and it went back to the station. Then a staff member who was waiting on the wall jumped down to reset some switches and locked them before walking back. (For most trains he cycles along the platform and walks up the track to change the points with local levers.)

About 15 minutes later the train left normally. So was that a level crossing malfunction? Or possibly an operating error? And is there any similar audible malfunction warning in this country?
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stuving
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« Reply #34 on: July 08, 2013, 00:00:25 »

Traffic lights for level crossings?

The level crossing at the exit from Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie station is inside a junction with traffic lights (picture 1). Note that these are standard red-amber-green lights. I asked some time ago on this forum if anyone know of one of these in Britain, and got no response.

I already knew of this one in France, but having looked closer they are quite common. For example, just up the line (in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez) there are two at crossroads where there is a road right next to the railway. The crossing within Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie station looks like another one, but is not ^ the lights are for a pedestrian crossing, and there are none for traffic onto the crossing from the port (hard to see in picture 2). (You can also see a rather vicious set of trap points.)

I have also found traffic lights at a simple LC (Level Crossing) ^ no side roads - in Rennes, on the very minor line to Ch^teaubriant and on a main road out of Rennes (picture 3). I suspect the specific reason here is that traffic tails back from the junction with the rocade. These lights are red, amber, flashing amber but never green (common in France). If you look closely, you can see the rather amateurish sign encouraging drivers not to queue nose to tail over the crossing. (Do the French have yellow box junctions? I don^t think so.)

I found a case for doing this in an official report, and quoted it earlier:
  • The fact that a driver might not see the flashing light immediately has been noted. But that's why our wig-wags have two lights: so there is always one lit. French ones have just one light (is it a wig or a wag?), and no amber introducing light, but no idea of changing that. What has been proposed is replacing all of them by standard three-aspect traffic lights. The argument goes that these are more familiar, evoking habitual responses even in those who rarely see a level crossing, do not flash, and have an amber phase. The advantage of  this is that with only a red light, drivers must sometimes have to cross when it is lit, and that weakens the "never cross..." conditioning. I have found that too: I saw the lights flashing (and heard the bell) as I crossed - did I miss them earlier?  Can't tell. I would add that our amber introducing light is meant to be lit for 3 seconds - my impression is that it is often a lot shorter (but I may be mistaken).

So:
^   Do you think this would help?
^   With our three-light wig-wags, does it help much less?
^   Commenting on the plan for traffic lights at the Wokingham station LC, I suggested that drivers might blindly obey a green light even when traffic was queuing across the LC. Do you agree?
^   Is a yellow box a better answer anyway?
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TonyK
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« Reply #35 on: July 08, 2013, 22:26:09 »

[
^   Commenting on the plan for traffic lights at the Wokingham station LC (Level Crossing), I suggested that drivers might blindly obey a green light even when traffic was queuing across the LC. Do you agree?


You cannot judge the vast majority of the morons on our roads by the actions of the few sensible drivers. Traffic lights are seen by too many people as an advisory, capable of being ignored in many circumstances. I was once taught the safe way of interpreting a red light as a "Give Way" sign by two former members of the regional crime squad. As a civil servant, I have had few better perks, but never use it these days.

At least a level crossing barrier offers a tactile clue, in the form of a bump if you hit it.
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« Reply #36 on: July 08, 2013, 22:35:58 »

I was taught that a green traffic light is an invitation to proceed if safe to do so.  Personally, I would find an invitation to proceed onto a level crossing which has no exit from it a reason to allow the driver behind to sound his/her horn impatiently rather than go across.  However, the driver who has been less cautious is probably not in a position to send a post to the forum to contradict.
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stuving
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« Reply #37 on: July 09, 2013, 00:10:49 »

At least a level crossing barrier offers a tactile clue, in the form of a bump if you hit it.

I was going to say no-one is thinking of doing away with barriers ^ but then there^s tram^trains. Trams, of course, have crossings without barriers, often inside traffic-light junctions.

The line from Nantes to Ch^teaubriant has 24 ^normal^ level crossings (half barrier except at stations where full barriers are preferred) and one pedestrian crossing out of town, but in town there are five tram-style crossings without barriers. These are all (I think) where the tram-train and tram lines run side by side.

The tram-train reuses on of two remaining railway lines, the other being a freight line to Carquefou (continuing as non exploit^e to Cand^). Previously there were barriers around the two rail lines, leaving the tram lines outside (though the line being reused had been taken up at road crossings). I did not check what they are doing with the barriers from now ^ I think they are still to be fitted. However, I think there will now be barriers around the freight line, leaving the three tram and tram-train lines right next to it outside.

If you think that is odd, it is nevertheless the same thing as happens (for example) in Nottigham. At the Basford crossing (worth visiting by Street View, if you are interested) there are two tram lines outside, and two rail lines inside, the barriers, and traffic lights around the whole thing. And finally, if that sounds odd or confusing, until the trams arrived the crossing was controlled by a local signaller, but had no barriers or wig-wags ^ just traffic lights.
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stuving
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« Reply #38 on: July 09, 2013, 07:28:15 »

Tunnel Safety

The apocalyptic scenes at the accident in Quebec have parallels in one of the documents I found about Nantes. Some kind of long-term transport planning group of the agglomeration de Nantes produced a document of their ideas individually and as groups. It^s long and I have only skimmed through it, but I did find one study that severely criticised the safety of the tunnel at Chantenay. This was the second half of the process of burying the line through the city, and was started in the 1930s but not finished until the 1950s.

The criticism compares safety standards and installations with modern tunnels such as the (rebuilt) Mont Blanc or the general Swiss requirements for safety. It finds Chantenay well below par, and carrying significant levels of oil refinery traffic. The scenarios include a fire in such a train as a passenger trian is passing it ^ including such phenomena as BLEVE and UVCE*.

I wonder if there are rail tunnels in Britain that should give us similar concerns.

(*BLEVE = boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion
UVCE = unconfined vapour cloud explosion
Both, oddly, better known in French than English language contexts)
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« Reply #39 on: July 09, 2013, 07:45:25 »

There is the potential for a fire in any rail tunnel, regardless of design or age. And if such a fire should involve an oil/petroleum train and passing passenger train the results are not going to be pretty, even with the best safety systems.

Number one priority is ensuring the tanker wagons are well maintained. The Summit Tunnel Fire (.pdf of the official accident report from Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate) is a case in point.

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« Reply #40 on: July 09, 2013, 08:09:09 »

Mont Blanc has influenced safety design, but of course it was a road tunnel. The Channel Tunnel would have been a better example of the particular needs of rail tunnels, though at the top end of cost and difficulty.

This French study talks about how the Swiss would be up in arms about one of their rail tunnels in such a condition, and would demand such measures, "relatively simple to put in place", as:

  • Level floor for emergency road vehicles to drive on
  • a dry "riser" (whatever that's called when horizontal)
  • sprinkler able keep trains cool for hours, including on approaches in cuttings
  • safe drainage for water and fuel
  • accesses to evacuate passengers

Access should generally be easier than under the channel, even if it does still mean new tunnels.

I think I have come across this meaning of "simple" in other more or less amateur transport proposals.
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stuving
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« Reply #41 on: March 01, 2014, 11:08:48 »

Yesterday the new tram-train line between Nantes and Ch^teaubriant was opened by Jean-Marc Ayrault (not only French prime minister but mayor of Nantes before that). That reminds me that I was going to comment on a few things I found/photographed/saw last year around Nantes, but never got round to it. I did mention the tram-train already in a post last summer (reply #31 above) with one picture, but only briefly.

If you just stop and think about trams, trains, and the best way to use them - and then about how to use the hybrid tram-train - you may come up with something like this:

  • an old railway line can be rebuilt for trains if complete, and it's not obvious that track will necessarily be a lot cheaper for tram-trains/light rail
  • that's partly because current wisdom is that out of town you should use 25 kV not 750 V, hence plain trams are not favoured
  • if there are gaps, a tram-train can get round them by road
  • if this is in town it adds to the usefulness of the service, elsewhere it doesn't really
  • using a railway station calls for a lowered platform (even in France), though this is not always done on Nantes's other tram-train line to Clisson
  • the real benefit of the tram-train is where it has to share with rail traffic out of town, and use street tracks as well for part of its route

    So why, in that case do we find:

    • neither of these routes ever uses the city tram tracks (both terminate in the main station at Nantes)
    • the Clisson route does share a standard railway line with other trains
    • the new Ch^teaubriant line runs beside the tram line in its off-street section (an old railway line), but never connects with it at all. It has a crossing, where it shares a 750 V supply, but separate track (see  Reply #31 above) .
    • at Ch^teaubriant the tram-trains use the station where the railway line from Rennes terminates, but the two do not join (picture 1)

    Is this a case of the worst of both worlds?

    The other pictures show the depot, where the unelectrified freight line to Carquefou is crossed by the 750 V access to the depot (picture 2) and the grand (grandiose?) new station at Haluch^re, with two lines each for the trams and tram-trains to avoid them getting too friendly.

    There's a report of the opening here.
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    stuving
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    « Reply #42 on: December 01, 2015, 17:01:02 »

    Having commented previously on the level crossing accident at Allinges in 2008, I can now report that a bridge has been built to replace it (PN 68) and a nearby accommodation crossing (PN 67). The fact that there was an accident there, and the death of seven children in a school bus is so very motivating for politicians, does make you wonder whether this was the only option. There is a press release - and another - from SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) R^seau.

    The road (serving also as a village bypass) and bridge cost 18M euros, as part of the programme of level crossing safety triggered by the accident. They list these aspects of that programme:
    • Create no new level crossings
    • Close little used LCs (Level Crossing)
    • Improve LCs or replace them with bridges
    • 63 LCs closed in 2014, including 8 on the national priority list
    • Develop prevention measures: reminding drivers of the rules and providing a GPS map of LCs
    • Install radars to detect speeding and jumping the lights
    • Conduct studies and experiments into new safety measures: brighter LED lights, object detectors, better barriers to keep pedestrians out, etc.
    • Object detecting radars are already under test
    • Experiments are underway with marking barriers to show they are designed to break if hit
    • Experiments are underway with painting stop lines on the road! (I have never understood why these are so rare at traffic lights in France)

    Once again, it's mostly familiar but with a couple of points that look odd.
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    « Reply #43 on: December 01, 2015, 21:04:08 »

    You mentioned trams and a crossing with trains and tram-trains side by side earlier. As trams in many/most places run on streets like buses, stopping for traffic lights and Give Way signs and so on, wouldn't barriers in such a situation be more for the convenience of the tram (allowing it to take priority) than safety?
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    stuving
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    « Reply #44 on: December 01, 2015, 23:16:53 »

    There's no connection - the latest post is entirely about railway level crossings, and the programme that followed the Allinges accident. I have no idea what they are thinking of as gates that can exclude pedestrians, nor whether is would ever work. The tram-trains are the width of France away and ... a bit confusing.

    Where the Chateaubriant tram-trains run out of town and off-road, they still have railway level crossings. In Nantes they also mostly run on one of a pair of railway tracks, the other being a very rarely-used factory access. What were a further two tracks on the same formation were made into tram tracks some time ago. Before the tram-train works there were a railway level crossing and a tram crossing side by side (as in Basford, though that has road traffic lights too). Now, all four lines are a tram crossing - and one of those is a railway track. I think this is confusing either way - but I guess the speed limit of the railway should determine which type of crossing is needed.

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