3381
Photo details
- Hornsey
- 13 October 2014
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Your comments
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Ben Williams
2 December 2014, 11:10:20
I'm told this coach has never really worked as intended and is not used at the moment and may soon be removed. I still don't fully understand the frame system as it doesn't appear to move?
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Robin Morel
2 December 2014, 14:36:33
Frame allows coach to be tilted at various degrees onto its side to allow evacuation training, smoke generators and emergency lighting etc also used to create realistic evacuation scenario.
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Jon Horswell
2 December 2014, 15:50:53
Blimey it is still with us! The frame allows fill tilt to 90 degrees and anywhere in between to allow for egress and emergency evacuation training. I think it was cradled in about 2002 and seemed to see a fair amount of use to start with, initially by SERCO. I and my colleagues had a company training day on this vehicle and we had lots of fun. It was within MoD Bramley for a while which was where we went to use it on what was an immensely hot day. It was in full Intercity colours at the time and we had a choice of where and how we wished to sit, or stand, inside the vehicle, for the purposes of each test. I just had to sit in the toilet for one exercise and remember to this day how it was easier to leave the WC at 45 degrees or more than the actually passenger saloon, which in any case was damp and musty after a few years of storage!! The frame, if i remember, IS attached to the vehicle and is in turn fitted to some sort of hydraulic rig but the logistics of storing it and using it sporadically saw it fall out of favour. It would be interesting to see why it ended up at Hornsey and who owns it. I may be way of the mark here, but something in the recesses of my mind tells me that the plan was to have an evacuation and training school at Hornsey but the idea clearly fell through and the coach remains stored. Why for so long I do not know but surely the scrap man beckons soon.
Hope this is of interest.
Jon Horswell