Serial power cuts, and why pedestrians should be strangled at birth ...

Sat at work this evening, toiling away, when we get plunged into
darkness. No lights, PCs, nowt.

So much for last weekend's UPS test.

Leave to pick madam up, and Canon St is in complete darkness - the
power outage has been centred on the station.

Dozens of pedestrians were milling about in the road like a remake of
Shaun of the Dead. Even flashing headlights and multiple use of the
horn failed to shift some of them. High volume verbal abuse managed it
in the end.

Get home, start to download ukrm, and the whole estate is plunged into
darkness for around 2 seconds - cue the alarm symphony.
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/CBX1000Z
|_\_____/_| ..93550../..25068.../..31928.
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 WG*
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 PM#5
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4 YTC#4 two#11
'^' RBR Clues: 00 Pts:0000 Miles:0000

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7141323.stm

a small fire -> (tens of?) thousands of people milling around in chaos.

 

Health & Safety innit?

Noticed how when you hear the travel news these days, there are loads
of incidents of full-on motorway closures? I'm sure it never used to
be like that. The other day, I heard a report where one motorway was
due to have a carriageway fully closed due to a broken down lorry.

 

The thin veneer of civilisation begins to crack...

 

right. some of those people looked hungry.

 

Who was it said that we are only a few meals away from barbarism?

Phil.

 

i don't know, but larry niven and jerry pournelle wrote in "lucifer's
hammer" that any society was only 3 meals away from revolution.

 

just think of it as evolution in action.

 

it's not every day you get to see own goals scored quite so spectacularly.

no, wait a minute, this is ukrm. it *is* every day...

 

Robert A. Heinlein said it, I seem to remember Isaac Asimov saying it
and I think Arthur C. Clarke said it.

 

a) where? In many cases "barbarism" or "revolution" would be the
correct answers
b) here: "" have some quotation marks.

 

I'd guess the main problem was the station being closed - the punters
would be milling about waiting for it to re-open.

It's quite impressive the chaos and crowding that even a brief station
closure can cause. Particularly one the main commuter stations.

 

no! really?

you say that as if it comes as a bit of a surprise to you.

wait, i get it. it's 17:00 in the fat controller's office:

- there's a small fire in the gym next door. the smoke alarm went off but
nobody's stuck in there. the fire service have arrived and are putting
it out now with a small hand held extinguisher.
- gosh! well, health & safety and all that, better shut the station down.
- you sure about that boss? it is rush hour, after all.
- well, it won't affect that many people, will it? anyway it'll only be for
an hour or so. and it's for their own good really.
- it's not serious enough to close the tube station, boss...
- best be on the safe side. more than my job's worth you know.

.... time passes ...

- golly, look at all those people. amazing. you'd never have thought it.
- of course not, boss.

 

I'd misread what you'd meant there as the original report stated only a
100 people were affected.

Not at all, it's the speed you get to crush levels of crowding at
mainline stations if you stop the flow - usually a minute or two -
that's frighteningly impressive. As those joining the ever increasing
crush can't see what's happening they just keep coming.

They did exactly that one November twenty years ago and since thirtyish
people died the railways have been very wary of small fires within
stations - particularly ones under ground with chimney effects.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

Paddington can be a fearsome place when the trains are fucked. I
remember arriving there one time, standing at the top of the ramp, and
it was like being at the back of a crowd at a festival - a sea of
thousands of people, all loitering with nothing to do.