Round Tin
Friday, January 14th, 2011After the British public have bailed out the banks,Do we have to have a whip round for Eurostar Tin of WD40.?
Fast Reg before you call me a jackass explain why we have aircraft,ships,and landcraft that can take these conditions in their stride.
I have myself flown aircraft that have to cope with all these conditions in one flight,just addmit its shoddy design,cost cutting and lack of forsight and incidentally the aircraft was a second world was Mitchell,,America to UK via Greenland including blizzard conditions(NO PROBLEMS)Merry Christmas Jack Ass.
and lighten up.
Not again. Everywhere I look on the internet there's some jackass who thinks he can fix a Eurostar with nothing more than a can of WD40 and that no-one else had even considered the idea.
Well let me tell you and all the other jackasses, WD40 would have made no difference at all because, contrary to the initial reports, the problem was not caused by condensation. It was the result of snow ingress.
Besides, WD40 may be just the thing to apply to the weedy old 12 volt system on your old Ford Cortina to get it started on a cold, damp morning, but a Eurostar runs on 25000 volts. Precisely where were you intending to aim the nozzle...?
**EDIT**
Steven D: We're talking about snow getting into the trains, not the tunnel.
The snow got into the trains BEFORE they reached the tunnel. However, it remained frozen until it reached the warmer atmosphere inside the tunnel itself, at which point melting commenced.
**EDIT 2**
I make no apologies for my tone, nor for the content of my answer. You may have expertise in aviation but not in rail. As a train driver I don't feel qualified to take issue with air or sea transport so I'm not entirely convinced how you feel qualified to comment on rail.
Unless, of course, you're hiding your light under a bushell.
The question you are asking is about Eurostar, so my answer is tailored to provide you with the information to satisfy that. Consequently I shall be limiting myself to that narrow subject.
For 15 years, Eurostar have been fitting their trains with snow screens to try and prevent snow ingress. For 15 years these have generally worked very well and have prevented large-scale failures. However, as has been demonstrated down the years on a number of different designs of rolling stock, sometimes these snow screens can be beaten by a very particular "wrong" type of snow.
The stuff in question is that very fine "dry" snow formed of fine ice crystals. Unlike most other types of snow, these do not behave in the same way because they fail to bind to each other and are easily picked up and blown around, even after settling on the ground. It is this type of snow that has been beating the snow screens on Eurostar and getting into areas it really shouldn't. While it all remains frozen there are no problems, but there is a fairly steep temperature gradient inside the Channel Tunnel which causes melting and for the resultant melt water to generate shorts and kill the train.
These conditions are a complete freak and have never combined in this way in the entire 15 year history of operation until now. Eurostar are now aware of this problem and are going through a process of modifying the snow screens and testing the modifications before recommencing a full service.
Oh, and I'll lighten up when I see a question that looks properly formed and shows either a modicum of understanding about the issues or a genuine desire to know more. Yours just looked like mud-slinging which I treated with the contempt that I felt it deserved. However, I have now given you the full story so I hope you are better informed.
peebleguy: Another jackass answer. Yes it may seem weak to blame snow or leaves, but that's probably because your understanding of the problems have been gleaned entirely from the media and are, therefore, totally wrong.
If you enter into this in the spirit of scientific enquiry you would be amazed by the havoc that can be wreaked by the humble snowflake or the lowly leaf. But then, if you just want to fling mud...
d@dz: No you can't, for reasons that are just too numerous to list.