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> Before I was allowed down into the building site, I had to be shown what to do in case of emergency. Basically, "run away from the smoke if you can." I met a

by mstade 10y ago

> Before I was allowed down into the building site, I had to be shown what to do in case of emergency. Basically, "run away from the smoke if you can." I met a guy at an after work thing a few years back, somewhere in the city, who said he worked with contingency planning for TfL. I asked him, what's the plan if there's a fire in the tube, one of the older lines where you're deep, deep underground, and there's heavy smoke development? His answer wasn't very re-assuring: "we pray." Since that day I very rarely, if ever, take the tube anywhere. If I do I make sure it's on off hours when there aren't as many people on board or in the stations. Irrational fear, for sure, but coupled with the extreme amounts of people you may find, with people literally jammed up against the walls, I figure I'd rather spend a few more bucks on a cab, or just spend more time walking. (Also the signs in various stations, King's Cross for instance, commemorating the victims of accidents and/or attacks aren't really re-assuring.)

peteretep 10y ago
> Also the signs in various stations, King's Cross for > instance Which happened in 1987.
- m-i-l 10y ago
  Back in the days when escalators were made of wood, often had piles of inflammable litter built up behind them, and still had smokers flicking their smoldering cigarette butts all over the place. There was a huge investigation into the causes of the King's Cross fire, and many changes implemented as a result [0]. The investigation even led to the discovery of the Trench Effect [1] "a combination of circumstances that can rush a fire up an inclined surface". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_effect
Symbiote 10y ago
That seems especially irrational if your alternative is road transport. People die every day from that. No passenger has died since 1987 on the Underground, except with the terrorist attacks. Even those didn't cause fires.

by mstade 10y ago

peteretep 10y ago

> Also the signs in various stations, King's Cross for > instance Which happened in 1987.

m-i-l 10y ago
Back in the days when escalators were made of wood, often had piles of inflammable litter built up behind them, and still had smokers flicking their smoldering cigarette butts all over the place. There was a huge investigation into the causes of the King's Cross fire, and many changes implemented as a result [0]. The investigation even led to the discovery of the Trench Effect [1] "a combination of circumstances that can rush a fire up an inclined surface". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_effect

Symbiote 10y ago

That seems especially irrational if your alternative is road transport. People die every day from that. No passenger has died since 1987 on the Underground, except with the terrorist attacks. Even those didn't cause fires.