Are pacers safe?

[TOCDriver]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDYsSETMQqM

[youtube]tDYsSETMQqM[/youtube]

INSIDE OUT: North West looks at the safety and quality of the regions trains. Just how safe are they!?

Never seen this before. Sensationalism or a matter of concern? You decide!

 

[yorkie]

How do you define "safe"?

If Pacers are not "safe", then any form of road transport isn't either!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

How do you define "safe"?

If Pacers are not "safe", then any form of road transport isn't either!

I should imagine they are about as safe as any other elderly bus.

 

[yorkie]

I should imagine they are about as safe as any other elderly bus.

but, running on the UK rail system rather than on roads, with various safety systems (TPWS, etc) in place, are far less likely to come into contact with other vehicles (or parts of the infrastructure!)

 

[O L Leigh]

Pacers are built to the same end loading standards as any other train built at the same time. Therefore they are no less safe than, say, a Sprinter.

O L Leigh

 

[455driver]

<shock horror> Pacers do not meet modern chash tests standards <shock horror>

Funnily enough neither does anything I drive at work!

I would much rather be on a Pacer than a (road) coach in a serious crash!

 

[WestCountry]

Pacers are built to the same end loading standards as any other train built at the same time. Therefore they are no less safe than, say, a Sprinter.

O L Leigh

Is that definite? The smallish number of Pacers that have run into solid things all seem to have suffered quite significant damage, especially the Lime St and Winsford ones where the bodyshells came off altogether (not possible with a 15x) and fatalities would have been likely if they hadn't happened to be ECS.
I can't think of any accidents with the much more numerous 15x classes where that was the case.

 

[bunnahabhain]

General scaremongering on a Panorama wannabe from a bunch of people led by somebody who looks a bit like Beaker from the Muppets. Perhaps if he were campaigning on grounds of disparity of rolling stock age with the south, or comfort, etc, he might have a more sensible argument.

 

[edwin_m]

Is that definite? The smallish number of Pacers that have run into solid things all seem to have suffered quite significant damage, especially the Lime St and Winsford ones where the bodyshells came off altogether (not possible with a 15x) and fatalities would have been likely if they hadn't happened to be ECS.
I can't think of any accidents with the much more numerous 15x classes where that was the case.

Weren't they designed so the bodyshells would come off in an accident? This would reduce the deceleration suffered by passengers and therefore probably reduce injuries too. And I believe after Winsford they were modified to prevent detachment or at least to limit the amount the body could move relative to the chassis. Thereby arguably making them less safe?

 

[O L Leigh]

Is that definite? The smallish number of Pacers that have run into solid things all seem to have suffered quite significant damage, especially the Lime St and Winsford ones where the bodyshells came off altogether (not possible with a 15x) and fatalities would have been likely if they hadn't happened to be ECS.
I can't think of any accidents with the much more numerous 15x classes where that was the case.

Yes of course it's definite. All rail vehicles have to meet the same specifications regardless of type. That the bodyshell detached from the underframe is hardly the point. The question is whether or not the bodyshell withstood the impact, and they did to a degree no worse than if the train had been a Sprinter instead.

There have been plenty of accidents with Sprinters hitting solid objects. Two Cl150/2 vehicles were scrapped quite soon after the class was introduced due to damage sustained after striking solid objects.

O L Leigh

 

[northwichcat]

Pacers are built to the same end loading standards as any other train built at the same time. Therefore they are no less safe than, say, a Sprinter.

O L Leigh

I'm not so sure about that. Would 250 passengers not be safer on a 2 car Sprinter than a 2 car Pacer given the Sprinter offers more seats and standing space?

 

[O L Leigh]

Based on what?

**EDIT**

I'm sorry but Pacers are designed to withstand the same end loadings as any other train built at the same time. There can be no dispute over this. I cannot cite an online source, but it is definitely mentioned in the Brian Haresnape BR Fleet Survey series of books covering second generation DMUs.

As to passenger loading, I seem to recall that one of the findings in the investigation into the Cannon Street train crash was that the crush loading of the train involved actually prevented there being more serious injuries and fatalities. So maybe putting your 250 passengers onto a roomier train would actually be riskier than wedging them into a railbus.

O L Leigh

 

[northwichcat]

O L Leigh - So safety only applies if the train crashes then? The fact that there's less for standing passengers to hold on to on a Pacer and that a Pacer provides a more bumpy ride aren't relevant to safety in your view?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I am thinking back to the days of yore when telescoping occurred to railway carriages in the event of a crash. Would the way that the Pacer fleet are so constructed and their known body-shell viability of these have any similarities to the damages to the railway carriages in those days ?

 

[Moonshot]

If Pacers arent safe , how come they have been on the Network for 30 years and are still in service?

 

[47802]

I think its fair to say that in the unlikely event of crash, given the choice of being in a Railbus or a 150 I know which I would take.

 

[Beveridges]

It has been extreme luck that the only 2 serious Pacer crashes have been ECS. Especially considering ECS makes up less than 10% of all Pacer movements.

 

[W230]

Never seen this before. Sensationalism or a matter of concern? You decide!

Sensationalism! OK, so I haven't actually watched it but I think I saw something similar on my local new a few years ago...

 

[northwichcat]

It has been extreme luck that the only 2 serious Pacer crashes have been ECS. Especially considering ECS makes up less than 10% of all Pacer movements.

Which 'crashes' are you referring to? Apart from the Winsford crash, the only other major ECS incident I can think of is the Durham incident which was similar to an incident on a lightly loaded 142 running a Blackpool-Liverpool service where one person was taken to hospital but it didn't involve a crash, just the train falling to pieces while in service!

There has been a crash where a Pacer hit the buffers at Lime Street and a crash where a Pacer hit debris following a landside on a Lincoln-Adwick service (both resulting in passengers being taken to hospital.)

 

[Beveridges]

The only 2 serious crashes I was referring to were Winsford and Lime St.

 

[fowler9]

Whilst the politician may have been biased by the fact they are just horrible units for the people he represents to travel on I am happy to believe what the crash safety expert said. I personally have not seen anything in the world as shoddy as a Pacer being used on front line commuter services.

 

[tbtc]

How do you define "safe"?

If Pacers are not "safe", then any form of road transport isn't either!

Precisely!

Pacers are safe trains. If they weren't safe trains then they wouldn't be allowed in operation today.

Obviously there's a chance that people will be injured if one crashes, but (as Yorkie says) there's infrastructure in place to stop this kind of thing from happening.

I wouldn't want to be on a Pacer in the event of a crash, but then I wouldn't want to be on any type of train in a crash.

There's an argument about trains that are "safer", but this Forum seems to have a very black/white view of "safe" (witness the DOO thread and the assertions that because A is safer than B that B is therefore not "safe"). You could make an argument that the risks vary between facing forwards and sitting backwards - in the event of a crash - but I wouldn't deem either to be "unsafe".

Living in South Yorkshire, around half of my journeys are on Pacers (142s or 144s) - the fact that they don't meet 2014 standards doesn't worry me because even the most modern stock soon becomes "non compliant" against ever more stringent regulations (e.g. are 350s "safe", since their cab design is being phased out in favour of the 380 cabs, on any subsequent orders? Should we have sensationalist reporting about "unsafe 350s"?). The W-reg bus I'll be getting home tonight probably doesn't meet 2014 safety regulations for new-builds, but I'll still get on board.

The question that matters is "how likely is a train to crash" - thankfully that chance is very very small at the moment.

 

[fowler9]

Precisely!

Pacers are safe trains. If they weren't safe trains then they wouldn't be allowed in operation today.

Obviously there's a chance that people will be injured if one crashes, but (as Yorkie says) there's infrastructure in place to stop this kind of thing from happening.

I wouldn't want to be on a Pacer in the event of a crash, but then I wouldn't want to be on any type of train in a crash.

There's an argument about trains that are "safer", but this Forum seems to have a very black/white view of "safe" (witness the DOO thread and the assertions that because A is safer than B that B is therefore not "safe"). You could make an argument that the risks vary between facing forwards and sitting backwards - in the event of a crash - but I wouldn't deem either to be "unsafe".

Living in South Yorkshire, around half of my journeys are on Pacers (142s or 144s) - the fact that they don't meet 2014 standards doesn't worry me because even the most modern stock soon becomes "non compliant" against ever more stringent regulations (e.g. are 350s "safe", since their cab design is being phased out in favour of the 380 cabs, on any subsequent orders? Should we have sensationalist reporting about "unsafe 350s"?). The W-reg bus I'll be getting home tonight probably doesn't meet 2014 safety regulations for new-builds, but I'll still get on board.

The question that matters is "how likely is a train to crash" - thankfully that chance is very very small at the moment.

Without a doubt you are correct that you are safe on a Pacer. It is still about the last train in the world in front line service that I would want to be on if a crash happened though.

 

[matchmaker]

I am thinking back to the days of yore when telescoping occurred to railway carriages in the event of a crash. Would the way that the Pacer fleet are so constructed and their known body-shell viability of these have any similarities to the damages to the railway carriages in those days ?

Telescoping was far more likely with screw coupled coaches.

 

[47802]

Isn't the answer that Pacers are safe but some other units from that era such as a 150 might fair better in a crash, and as safety standards improve newer units should fair better than any unit from that era, although the 150's and other MK3 based suburban units always look as though they were built like a tank.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Pacers are safe trains. If they weren't safe trains then they wouldn't be allowed in operation today.

The railway will insist that these trains are safe right up until we have another Winsford, except this time on a crush loaded commuter train. Then they might decide they're not safe. To do anything before then costs £££, and this Government would rather spend their dough on their pointless destruction of the Chilterns.

It was the same with MkIs. "Of course they're safe" BR chimed for years. And then Clapham Junction and Cannon Street proved that they, er, weren't, just as everybody had been telling them for years.

Pacers have the same design flaws as MkI carriages, namely bodysides that are not part of the chassis and detach when there's a crash. That designed flaw killed people at Clapham Junction and again at Cannon Street, and even then it took another ten years to finally get those death-traps off the railways.

Compare the crashes at Lime Street and Winsford with the crash at Watford in 1996 involving a 321 (the same bodyshell as a 150). The Watford crash was bigger than both, yet the bodyshells survived and only one person died.

I am happy to travel on Pacers because I trust the other technology on the railways enough to believe they won't crash. But if one ever does crash in public service, it will kill a lot of people on board, and will be an entirely preventable disaster.

 

[TOCDriver]

I don't think you're in any more danger on a pacer than on any other simillar aged unit, especially if it's rammed with people, as a previous poster describes. Properly maintained and checked, they get the job done sufficiently enough

 

[edwin_m]

To do anything before then costs £££, and this Government would rather spend their dough on their pointless destruction of the Chilterns.

Gratuitous anti-HS2 comment doesn't advance the argument. Perhaps the Government might spend the money on road safety or the NHS, which would probably save more lives than replacing Pacers.

It was the same with MkIs. "Of course they're safe" BR chimed for years. And then Clapham Junction and Cannon Street proved that they, er, weren't, just as everybody had been telling them for years.

Pacers have the same design flaws as MkI carriages, namely bodysides that are not part of the chassis and detach when there's a crash. That designed flaw killed people at Clapham Junction and again at Cannon Street, and even then it took another ten years to finally get those death-traps off the railways.

As so rightly said above, there are degrees of safety rather than "safe" or "unsafe". The Mk1s didn't survive too well at Harrow in 1952 but were the best stock available at the time. Even when they were common, travelling by train was around five times safer than travelling the same distance by road.

I am happy to travel on Pacers because I trust the other technology on the railways enough to believe they won't crash. But if one ever does crash in public service, it will kill a lot of people on board, and will be an entirely preventable disaster.

All disasters are preventable with the benefit of hindsight. And all safety relies on all components of the system. You say yourself that you are happy to travel on them because of the other safeguards built in. Therefore, even by a flawed definition, surely they are "safe"?

 

[rebmcr]

The investigation report into the Stone Junction incident specifically stated that the Pacer fleet is significantly less crashworthy than the rest of the network's rolling stock.

 

[waterboo]

Weren't they designed so the bodyshells would come off in an accident? This would reduce the deceleration suffered by passengers and therefore probably reduce injuries too. And I believe after Winsford they were modified to prevent detachment or at least to limit the amount the body could move relative to the chassis. Thereby arguably making them less safe?

There is truth in this. The bodyshells crumple, so the time to decellerate increases, so there is less force on the passengers, as there is a longer time for change in momentum.