Talk:Channel Tunnel

Eurostar Independent Review

The actual report is available at:

• http://www.eurostarindependentreview.org/pdf/Eurostar%20Independent%20Review.pdf

—Sladen (talk) 00:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I have added a ref to the article. Biscuittin (talk) 11:58, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Recommendation 8, page 67, refers to "insufficient rescue locomotives". I still cannot understand why Class 66 and Class 70 locomotives are not allowed to enter the tunnel in an emergency. Is it just bureaucracy? Biscuittin (talk) 12:03, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd guess:

1. Lack of Diesel exhaust scrubbers
2. Lack of TVM430 signalling
3. Lack of Scharfenberg Type 10 couplers

Never mind the issue of trying to procure one at short notice. —Sladen (talk) 04:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

How about what you might have called 'fire proofing', or these days 'fire control and mitigation measures'? Edgepedia (talk) 08:58, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The point I'm trying to make is that there seems to be no attempt to balance one risk against another. The important thing is to get the failed train out of the tunnel as quickly as possible. Lack of Diesel exhaust scrubbers is hardly a major problem - think of the road tunnels under the Alps. Lack of TVM430 signalling - the rescue locomotive should proceed slowly until the driver can see the failed train. Lack of Scharfenberg Type 10 couplers - this can be handled by barrier wagons. Why can't they use a bit of imagination? Biscuittin (talk) 21:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism?

The tunnel has just grown from 50 km to 104 km. Is this vandalism? Biscuittin (talk) 22:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. It has been reverted. This article seems to be a very popular playground for vandals. Biscuittin (talk) 10:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

We have had more vandalism today. Should we put some editing restrictions on this article? Biscuittin (talk) 17:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

This channel tunnel ias very long as hell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.124.128.109 (talk) 16:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Train Failures section - nothing short of madness

This is completely out of all proportion, it has been lopsided completely towards the events of a few months ago, and far beyond the scale of the other incidents listed. The 1996 train failures, which directly affected 1000 people, justified all of 36 words. Why do we need 600, almost twenty times as many words, to cover an event that inconvinenced 2000? The answer is simple, people rush to Wikipedia and write tons about what is immediately going on, with no care for long term worth or proportionality. This needs to be trimmed, dramatically, in the retrospective aftermath, after all the caught-up-in-the-drama editors have gone home, much like the info about what is likely the hundreth strike by BA staff infesting the History of British Airways article with no long term relivance, or the coverage of this same event on the Eurostar page. We do not need a checklist of a by-the-minute commentry of the incident, we do not need every single useless detail on the event nor the same information written out three or more times. Conceise, precise, moderate coverage, in balance with the coverage of all the other events, would be be wholley more normal, preferable, and more typical of what is expected of an encyclopedia. At this level of coverage, the incident isn't far off justifying its own article; why should it dominate over the other incidents other than it being 'new'? Kyteto (talk) 15:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The 1996 Channel Tunnel fire article contains roughly 4,000 words (not 36 words).

Deleted material and citations[1]:

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The large number of failed trains meant that both running tunnels were blocked.

Problems started at around 21:00, with Kent fire brigade being alerted at 21:46. ... Of the five Class 373 trains and two turned back:

1. 18:59 Brussels–London (9157); towed to London St Pancras by a Eurotunnel diesel locomotive. Delay of 3 hours 49 minutes.
2. 18:43 Paris–London (9053); 700 passengers evacuated via service tunnel to an empty Eurotunnel shuttle train in opposite running tunnel. Passengers taken to Ashford International railway station, for conventional trains to London. Late into London by 12 hours, arriving at 08:00 the next morning.
3. 19:13 Paris–London (9055); Coupled to adjacent 20:13 Eurostar train behind and dragged out by diesel locomotive, then continued to London. Hauled to Folkestone and picked up passengers from 20:13 Paris service behind it.
4. 19:37 Disneyland–London (9057); 664 passengers evacuated via service tunnel to an empty Eurotunnel shuttle train in opposite running tunnel and taken via France.
5. 20:13 Paris–London (9059); Coupled to adjacent 19:13 Eurostar train in front, passengers transferred to the earlier 19:13 train for journey to London or taken via Folkestone and transported in five coaches by road to London.
6. 20:29 Brussels–London (9163), held at Calais then turned back to Brussels before reaching the Channel Tunnel.
7. 21:13 Paris–London (9063), held at Calais then turned back to Paris before reaching the Channel Tunnel.

The occasion was the first time during the fifteen years that a Eurostar train had to be evacuated inside the tunnel itself; the failing of four at once being described as "unprecedented". The Channel Tunnel reopened at 05:40 CET the following morning.

References

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Coverage by mainstream media is what makes something WP:NOTABLE, not any one individual's personal opinion of its relevance. Some of this information ("first evacuation of a Eurostar in the tunnel"; "both main tunnels blocked"; "five simultaneous failed trains") is arguably quite pertinent... —Sladen (talk) 14:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm obviously referring to coverage within this article, not the dedicated sub-article, which is a simple 36 word line of text. Considering it was the first major failure of the Channel Tunnel, it might be equally pressing to mention that directly, and equally notable as well, but it isn't mentioned here, it is left to the relivant sub-article covering the event in full detail. I'm looking for a justifiable reason why this deserves all this extra content that the other incidents do not have, unless this is effectively 20 times more significant why does it need to take up 80% of the entire Train Failures section, isn't this unbalanced against the other events? Either they need to be expanded, as there were PLENTY of articles covering the 1996 failure, or more likely, this needs to be trimmed down to a more conventional size just as the calls on Eurostar saw the same thing happening. This talk page already logs that it is grossly out of proportion in the opinion of other users. Finally, just because something is covered by the mainstram media in great detail means it belongs precisely here, a proper sub article for full elaboration would be more suitable for...full elaboration. There isn't any need to bloat the section too much, when it isn't dramatically above-and-beyond previous incidents listed, it just happens to be recent and sadly that tends to mean it gets jam-packed with a heavy commentry of the event. The sizing isn't great now, but it is at least approaching decency and a capable level. Do remember that this is supposed to be a summarising section of all the events, not just the one; I'm sure you can recognise that there is something wrong with the level of coverage between the 2009 failure and any other failure of the Channel Tunnel either before or since. I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of the minute-by-minute coverage, even though it violates WP:Not News by its excessive depth, as long as the other sections have the same kind of coverage. Else it looks silly, to put it simply and bluntly; the reason for this is best put by the policy I linked: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" Simply because it exists, does not mean the section should be jammed with the stuff, as that size it should be spun off to an appropriate daughter page. Kyteto (talk) 21:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Just though I'd leave a notewhen I noticed you though I was referring to the Channel Tunnel Fire of 1996. I was referring to the 1996 train failures cause by the cold weather. Why does one incident, the first and not exactly minor in comparison with the 2009 incident, deserve far more coverage than the other; they're both major failures of multiple trains on the same reason, both got very heavy coverage from the press. The answer is that Wikipedia wasn't around in 1996, in 2009 it was, people threw up tons of unnecessary data because it happened to be there; I'd argue unless the 1996 coverage of the cold weather failures is to a similar proportion to the 2009 cold weather failures, there's something wrong and unbalanced about our coverage, thrown towards the present and near-present and negelecting the past. Both need to be fairly similar in size, as they are fairly similar incidents. Kyteto (talk) 13:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

wrong coordinates for the chunnel exit

I used the exit coordinates for the chunnel on google earth, and it put me in Gaziantep, Turkey, which is WAY off of where it is supposed to be listed (as Coquelles, France) in the article. This just needs to be corrected. Or google earth is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.1.3.229 (talk) 19:32, 5 June 2010 (UTC)