Report on the Fire that occurred on 11th August 1982 on a passenger train between Wood Green Station and Bounds Green Station on the Piccadilly Line of London Transport Railways

"At about 16.17 a train entering service from the Cockfosters Depot had picked up under its positive shoe gear two rail chairs which must have been left beside the line. These caused a positive fault to earth which was indicated as such on fault indication equipment. but some 13 to 14 minutes later and before this short circuit had been cleared another train having an incipient negative shoe fault on its rear car which had until then remained undetected, entered the same traction section and a serious arc occurred between its shoe conductor which was then held at about 600 volts above earth, and an axle casing of its trailing bogie. As the conductor was consumed, the arc swept across the under-floor of the car in which two holes were burnt and then on to the bogie headstock which was melted through. Although the car generally was not set on fire, a great amount of smoke was generated which was sucked into the Westbound tunnel via adits between the two tunnels by the movement of West-bound trains. A similar electric arc had occurred on a train of the same stock in January 1980 and a modification to all trains was in hand.

The train on fire came to a stand about 560 m short of Bounds Green Station and a following train was halted at the signal in rear with its rear end some 250 m ahead of Wood Green Station platform. About 55 passengers were detrained and taken forward from the failed train to Bounds Green Station by the driver and guard and were reported to be clear by 17.35: two of these passengers were taken to hospital suffering from shock. A further 110 passengers were evacuated to the rear from the second train helped by the station staff at Wood Green, where some 600 passengers were also detrained from a train in the platform and from two other trains which had been drawn up to its rear. All passengers were clear from Wood Green Station by 17.28. Nearly all the passengers who had been evacuated from the trains between the two stations suffered from the effects of smoke and fumes and 15 in all, including two members of staff, were taken to hospital by ambulance but only one was detained overnight for observation."

• Documents
• Accidents
• Browse
• Getting Started

Have Your Say

Mailing List

Donate