Brexit, for once some facts.

Jesus H Christ

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Until it it is not. How do you get water, high pressure pumps into tunnels , thru mountains quickly?. You cannot fly them, helicopters not great at altitude, you cannot use roads , and they are a bit big for St Bernard Dogs. Oh and ships are next to useless.
Fire engines. They reach parts fire trains can’t.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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Have you every actually walked in switzerland?. the only way to get heavy kit around is by train. the Hamlets and villages are linked by rails ... so no. not as silly as it seems.
Indeed, a good illustration of how little open easily accessible space they have was when they bought some Centurian tanks from us for their army.

Because they couldn't find a big enough open area to use them they reached an agreement with France to transport them there for exercises.
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Jesus H Christ

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I'd have expected some fire trains to actually be bi-modal. Seems an obvious approach but possibly technical or cost issues precluded them?
I used to fly my hot-air balloon In Switzerland and Austria every January for many years. As you probably realise, most habitation is in the valleys which are served by roads and in many cases, railways. However, many buildings are a long way from the rail track, too far to be of use.

The Swiss and Austrians have the best solution, fire engines. Fire trains are ridiculous in all settings.
 

Woosh

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Trains do catch fire, at least our UK ones do from time to time and the lines are often very far from road access.
interesting concept. It is ideal for situations where the fire starts inside a tunnel.
Norway buys in too.

quote:

The trains will be centrally stationed to serve three areas: one in Geneva to serve the new Ceva line and the region around Lake Geneva; one at Melide for south Ticino and the Ceneri Base Tunnel; and one at Brig for the Lötschberg Base Tunnel, the Simplon line and the canton of Valais. Each will have its own crew, ready to move off within a few minutes at any time.

Each fire-fighting unit consists of a rescue vehicle, a tank wagon and an equipment vehicle. It can travel up to 100km/h and is powerful enough to rescue a 1600-tonne train. The driver’s cab and rescue vehicle, which can accommodate up to 60 people, are equipped with an independent air supply system and equipment for up to 23 firefighters. The tank wagon holds 50m3 of water and 1800 litres of foam extract. The rescue and firefighting equipment vehicles each have their own diesel engines enabling each unit to operate independently as required.

Railroads have firefighting trains for these types of incidents:

  • to put out fires caused by their track grinding operations,
  • to fight fires along their tracks in order to prevent the rail ties from burning and to protect their property,
  • to suppress fires inside tunnels,
  • rescue passengers in burning tunnels, and
  • to put out fires that threaten to burn their bridges, trestles, and snow sheds (wooden structures covering tracks in the mountains)
 

flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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The evidence we can see is;

1) The EU still has not taken a decision as to whether they want to use the AZ vaccine.

2) The U.K. place an order and invested in the AZ vaccine during May 2020. The EU didn’t do anything until October 2020 and unlike the UK didn’t pay any money.

3) The U.K. took the decision to use the AZ vaccine weeks ago.

Back of the queue EU I’m afraid. If they carry on in the petulant fashion displayed over recent days, they should be charged 100 Euros per shot and we should use that extra money to set up a massive vaccination programme in third world nations. The more people we vaccinate, the less chance of mutations. If we neglected third world countries, that’s where the new strains will come From.
Two things:

They're big and it's how big behaves with smaller. It's never fair.

This vaccine spat between the EU and the UK is just a continuation of the Brexit refusals of both sides to give concessions. Both sides are as bad and this is going to continue for many years on all sorts of issues. Just watch how rocky the detailed trade negotiations are going to be.
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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You build fire fighting equipment and supplies into the very structure of the tunnel (or whatever). Pipes and remotely operable or automatic valves. Water (or foam) tanks. Pipes from water supplies above the tunnels - such as lakes. Pumps as needed.
This is Switzerland, the system would freeze up in Winter, and the installation cost would be astronomic anyway. The fire train to deal with the odd rare incident is much cheaper.

The channel tunnel has no sprinkler system, even there they use fire fighting vehicles in the service tunnel for the occasional fire they suffer.
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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What do you all think, do you think it's likely the EU will stop the Pfizer vaccine coming into the UK, and will our government then sanction the use of the AZ vaccine as the second shot even if you had the Pfizer vaccine as the initial injection.
I don't think either will happen, this is just a political spat that won't be allowed to get too serious. Hence Boris playing it down.
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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I used to fly my hot-air balloon In Switzerland and Austria every January for many years. As you probably realise, most habitation is in the valleys which are served by roads and in many cases, railways. However, many buildings are a long way from the rail track, too far to be of use.
Fire trains are for fires on the railway, not for areas of habitation !

And fires on trains are not unusual.
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oldgroaner

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The evidence we can see is;

1) The EU still has not taken a decision as to whether they want to use the AZ vaccine.

2) The U.K. place an order and invested in the AZ vaccine during May 2020. The EU didn’t do anything until October 2020 and unlike the UK didn’t pay any money.

3) The U.K. took the decision to use the AZ vaccine weeks ago.

Back of the queue EU I’m afraid. If they carry on in the petulant fashion displayed over recent days, they should be charged 100 Euros per shot and we should use that extra money to set up a massive vaccination programme in third world nations. The more people we vaccinate, the less chance of mutations. If we neglected third world countries, that’s where the new strains will come From.
Your evidence is incorrect
2:) The EU invested £297 Million pounds on the vaccine
the UK invested £65.5 Millions via the Vaccines Task Force

The EU has every right to feel hard done by, but then right wingers are easy to wind up and mouth off aren't they? they don't bother to check the facts :cool:
 
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oyster

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This is Switzerland, the system would freeze up in Winter, and the installation cost would be astronomic anyway. The fire train to deal with the odd rare incident is much cheaper.

The channel tunnel has no sprinkler system, even there they use fire fighting vehicles inthre service tunnel for the occasional fire they suffer.
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Temperature in some Swiss tunnels remains high throughout the year. I don't have specific details for all of them - of course, and some Swedish tunnels definitely freeze, but:

With regard to drainage, the constantly accumulating rock water is fed into a main drainage pipeline. From there, it drains to the surface where it is collected. At Erstfeld, the mean temperature of the rock water is only 13°C, so no cooling is necessary and the water can be drained directly into rivers. At Bodio, the rock water emerges with a mean temperature of 27°C and therefore flows first into cooling ponds or cooling towers. From there it flows by way of a 350 m long cooling canal into the Ticino river.

Also, many tunnels have parallel service tunnels which are not subject to the cooling effect of trains. Some Swedish service tunnels remain above zero even when the adjacent rail tunnel freezes. So shove the pipes down that! And add anti-freeze!

Given the astronomic cost of building the tunnel in the first place, the incremental cost of built-in fire fighting might not be that bad.
 
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oldgroaner

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The U.K. took a big gamble by committing to the AZ vaccine very early. It’s paid off in a big way.

Germany threatening “consequences “ unless we bump them up the queue isn’t help. What do they have in mind? Reactivating their gas chambers?
That mouth of yours has disconnected from the brain again
 

Jesus H Christ

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Dec 31, 2020
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Your evidence is incorrect
2:) The EU invested £297 Million pounds on the vaccine
the UK invested £65.5 Millions via the Vaccines Task Force

The EU has every right to feel hard done by, but then right wingers are easy to wind up and mouth off aren't they? they don't bother to check the facts :cool:
I can’t find anything to confirm your figures of £279 million directly into the AZ vaccine development. I suspect it’s incorrect. By size of nation, the U.K. is one of, if not the biggest investor in vaccine development. The AZ vaccine was invented here in the U.K.

The U.K. was months ahead of the EU ordering and paying for the AZ vaccine. They will remain behind the U.K. in delivery schedules. Germany wanted to break away and order earlier, but the EU threatened to prosecute them! No wonder they are pissed.

What is correct is the EU not even being at the stage of knowing if they want to use it!
 
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flecc

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Given the astronomic cost of building the tunnel in the first place, the incremental cost of built-in fire fighting might not be that bad.
Very true, but adding it to all existing tunnels could be prohibitive for such rare events.
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oyster

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Very true, but adding it to all existing tunnels could be prohibitive for such rare events.
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Certainly agree there. It could be effectively impossible.

And I am aware the conventional sprinklers might not be effective when trains are still running. So other approaches might be in order such as deluge points.

It just seems so very awkward using trains with all the signalling and routing issues they have. Even if you know there is a fire and have a fire train ready, you have to be quite sure there is no train coming the other way before you can lift a finger to start firefighting.
 

Zlatan

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Nov 26, 2016
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I used to fly my hot-air balloon In Switzerland and Austria every January for many years. As you probably realise, most habitation is in the valleys which are served by roads and in many cases, railways. However, many buildings are a long way from the rail track, too far to be of use.

The Swiss and Austrians have the best solution, fire engines. Fire trains are ridiculous in all settings.
Fire balloons... Now there, s an interesting concept... Germany built one a few years ago..
 

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