Arrived at Clapham Junction around 6:30 yesterday evening to be
greeted by a horrendous ear-piercing alarm and the curious sight of
lots of passengers with fingers buried deeply in ears. Most platform
staff were presumably sheltering somewhere from the noise, which
wasn't exactly reassuring to people arriving on trains and who
wouldn't have a clue if the alarm was genuine or not. Once a member of
staff was found the only advice given was to not panic and for
passengers to just cover their ears!

The situation wasn't helped by a failure of the CIS displays, which
temporarily gave up showing actual train departures and instead
instructed commuters to "listen for announcements", which was all but
impossible.

Apparently it took over 3 hours before an engineer arrived and found
the off switch. I do wonder what would have happened if there had been
a genuine fire/security alert during that time, given that it was
impossible to hear and tannoy announcements

Someone uploaded a video of the situation to YouTube -turn up the
volume to get the full effect...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAuW2IbnGGE

~cj

In article
,
(cj) wrote:

Arrived at Clapham Junction around 6:30 yesterday evening
[snip]

I do wish people would stop assuming that Clapham Junction is in Clapham.
It's in Battersea!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Yes... Isn't it usual for "X Junction" to NOT be in X?
At least - when they were built.

In article
,
(Offramp) wrote:

Yes... Isn't it usual for "X Junction" to NOT be in X?
At least - when they were built.

Common, yes, but not universal.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 30/09/2011 10:02, cj wrote:
Arrived at Clapham Junction around 6:30 yesterday evening to be
greeted by a horrendous ear-piercing alarm and the curious sight of
lots of passengers with fingers buried deeply in ears. Most platform
staff were presumably sheltering somewhere from the noise, which
wasn't exactly reassuring to people arriving on trains and who
wouldn't have a clue if the alarm was genuine or not. Once a member of
staff was found the only advice given was to not panic and for
passengers to just cover their ears!

The situation wasn't helped by a failure of the CIS displays, which
temporarily gave up showing actual train departures and instead
instructed commuters to "listen for announcements", which was all but
impossible.

I don't think it was an alarm. Sounded to me more like the PA system
going haywire (hence no announcements).

--
Paul

On Sep 30, 4:48*pm, Paul wrote:
On 30/09/2011 10:02, cj wrote:

Arrived at Clapham Junction around 6:30 yesterday evening to be
greeted by a horrendous ear-piercing alarm and the curious sight of
lots of passengers with fingers buried deeply in ears. Most platform
staff were presumably sheltering somewhere from the noise, which
wasn't exactly reassuring to people arriving on trains and who
wouldn't have a clue if the alarm was genuine or not. Once a member of
staff was found the only advice given was to not panic and for
passengers to just cover their ears!

The situation wasn't helped by a failure of the CIS displays, which
temporarily gave up showing actual train departures and instead
instructed commuters to "listen for announcements", which was all but
impossible.

I don't think it was an alarm. *Sounded to me more like the PA system
going haywire (hence no announcements).

--
Paul

Doesn't sound like PA feedback, that's more of a 'hollow' tone due to
the natural reverb of a space shared by mic + speaker, one Youtube
comment says it went on for more than an hour, seems like another case
of "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" computer malfunction and
"Computer says no" attitude from the staff, an increasingly common
problem.

On Sep 30, 8:34*pm, "alexander.keys1"
wrote:
On Sep 30, 4:48*pm, Paul wrote:



On 30/09/2011 10:02, cj wrote:

Arrived at Clapham Junction around 6:30 yesterday evening to be
greeted by a horrendous ear-piercing alarm and the curious sight of
lots of passengers with fingers buried deeply in ears. Most platform
staff were presumably sheltering somewhere from the noise, which
wasn't exactly reassuring to people arriving on trains and who
wouldn't have a clue if the alarm was genuine or not. Once a member of
staff was found the only advice given was to not panic and for
passengers to just cover their ears!

The situation wasn't helped by a failure of the CIS displays, which
temporarily gave up showing actual train departures and instead
instructed commuters to "listen for announcements", which was all but
impossible.

I don't think it was an alarm. *Sounded to me more like the PA system
going haywire (hence no announcements).

--
Paul

Doesn't sound like PA feedback, that's more of a 'hollow' tone due to
the natural reverb of a space shared by mic + speaker, one Youtube
comment says it went on for more than an hour, seems like another case
of "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" computer malfunction and
"Computer says no" attitude from the staff, an increasingly common
problem.

Not only that, but clearly no-one with the authority or means to turn
the d**ded thing off! I would not be surprised if none of the station
staff had keys to the electrical switchroom at the station, on some
spurious Elfin Safety argument. I cannot believe that the station
staff would have willingly put up with that sort of noise if they had
the means to do something about it.

On Sep 30, 8:43*pm, The Gardener wrote:
On Sep 30, 8:34*pm, "alexander.keys1"
wrote:









On Sep 30, 4:48*pm, Paul wrote:

On 30/09/2011 10:02, cj wrote:

Arrived at Clapham Junction around 6:30 yesterday evening to be
greeted by a horrendous ear-piercing alarm and the curious sight of
lots of passengers with fingers buried deeply in ears. Most platform
staff were presumably sheltering somewhere from the noise, which
wasn't exactly reassuring to people arriving on trains and who
wouldn't have a clue if the alarm was genuine or not. Once a member of
staff was found the only advice given was to not panic and for
passengers to just cover their ears!

The situation wasn't helped by a failure of the CIS displays, which
temporarily gave up showing actual train departures and instead
instructed commuters to "listen for announcements", which was all but
impossible.

I don't think it was an alarm. *Sounded to me more like the PA system
going haywire (hence no announcements).

--
Paul

Doesn't sound like PA feedback, that's more of a 'hollow' tone due to
the natural reverb of a space shared by mic + speaker, one Youtube
comment says it went on for more than an hour, seems like another case
of "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" computer malfunction and
"Computer says no" attitude from the staff, an increasingly common
problem.

Not only that, but clearly no-one with the authority or means to turn
the d**ded thing off! I would not be surprised if none of the station
staff had keys to the electrical switchroom at the station, on some
spurious Elfin Safety argument. I cannot believe that the station
staff would have willingly put up with that sort of noise if they had
the means to do something about it.

According to an apologetic poster at Clapham Junction this evening,
the racket was apparently caused by a power surge to the fire alarm
circuitry. (In my experience power surges tend to permanently fry
electrical things, not render them permanently stuck on "loud", but
then I'm not an electrician, and happy to be corrected...)
~cj

On Sep 30, 10:20*pm, cj wrote:

According to an apologetic poster at Clapham Junction this evening,
the racket was apparently caused by a power surge to the fire alarm
circuitry. (In my experience power surges tend to permanently fry
electrical things, not render them permanently stuck on "loud", but
then I'm not an electrician, and happy to be corrected...)

I think it's generally the case with fire alarms, for fairly obvious
reasons (so they continue to work as long as possible even if a fire
is busy burning through their cables, even though these are armoured),
that they work on the basis of "if in doubt, sound", with things like
sirens often operating semi-independently of the control unit. So if
a surge triggers an alarm and the circuitary is then fried, it may be
quite difficult to get it all to stop other than by pulling the
breakers and waiting for the batteries in the sounders to run out,
which may be some time.

It would seem that Clapham Junction has the rather annoying type of
sounder which is painful to the ear, presumably to ensure people
*actually do* evacuate rather than ignoring it. But that seems not to
have worked...

Neil

I think it's generally the case with fire alarms, for fairly obvious
reasons (so they continue to work as long as possible even if a fire
is busy burning through their cables, even though these are armoured),
that they work on the basis of "if in doubt, sound", with things like
sirens often operating semi-independently of the control unit. So if
a surge triggers an alarm and the circuitary is then fried, it may be
quite difficult to get it all to stop other than by pulling the
breakers and waiting for the batteries in the sounders to run out,
which may be some time.

----------------------------------------------------

I had a similar problem at work a few years ago. The fire alarm started
wailing and the normal shut down didn't work.

Maintenance said they couldn't be there for over an hour. I had a show in
the theatre starting in less than an hour.

I brought out my trusty meter, saw it was a ground fault problem and, after
speaking with Fire Marshall who was on site answering the call, I cut the
green ground cable(s) of the effected alarms. Silence. :-)

As it was a ground fault and the other alarms in the building had shut down
when I turned the system "off" and were still working when I turned the
system back on, after cutting the ground wire in the effect alarms, so the
Fire Marshall allowed the show to go on.


--
Cheers
Roger Traviss


Photos of the late GER: -

http://www.greateasternrailway.com

For more photos not in the above album and kitbashes etc..:-
http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l9...Great_Eastern/