LIRR Public Service: Train evacuation video

http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/lirr/pubs/vide ... uation.htm

Public service video loaded with interior footage of equipment.
(Note the woman still clutching her coffee cup during the dire emergency.)

"I need a conductor in car 7011 right away!" What a cheeseball video

Note to dialup users. It's 17 megabytes...

Oh but man!!!! It's worth the 1 hour download.

What a riot!!!!!

Look at the 'passengers' they look either 1/2 dead or just have these BLANK stares on them. And they're not moving!!!! Where's the chatty cell phone user, the drunks, the commuter romances?

Conductor sitting at the head end to make a PA announcement?

Calm evacuation. They're not showing everyone running and taking a leap...

"and here's your handbag!" Like any communitng woman's gonna let ANYONE have her handbag while she bails out of the train?

The little bridge board thing is cool, though. The footage of the M-7 was too short, should have shown a pass through the station. That thing was <b>moving</b> in that shot!

They don't show the guy venting his frustration into the emergency intercom. I hear this has been popular on the NYCTA...

Does MN have one of these videos yet?

All joking aside, it's actually a pretty good video, however:

* They should have demonstrated the emergency door releases, instead of just showing them. Yeah, there's a red handle involved. What else?

* Ditto for the window - I know there's pulling here, but beyond that?

* I know they want to show the M-7s off, but a few different scenes in other cars would help keep it interesting.

* The narrator guy should be kept off camera. Seriously. The audio has an echo/reverb to it, plus a lot of tape hiss. An offscreen voice here would have really helped.

* The video quality is very good. It doesn't have that 'camcorder look' that a lot of stuff has. There was a shifting in the aspect ratio which was weird though.

* The lack of cheesy graphics, animation, and music is a big plus here.

* Study those faces carefully. If you see them on your train, remember this video, cause chances are, you'll be evacuating!!!

These I believe are all employees in the video acting as active commuters. I noticed the display board showing HICKSVILLE, and footage to what I saw looked like it was in Babylon Yard which is one of the many training facilities LIRR has besides Hillside.

17 megabytes...yikes!! Good point about dialup, Phil. I have gotten too complacent with Optimum. It played within seconds for me. (Apologies to dialup people for not posting the size of the file...I usually do that. You guys pretty much know that any video files are gonna take forever, though.)

I posted the link because people in the forums are always asking for video footage of the trains, not because of the video itself.

Neil, I think one part of the video was taken behind HSF, because if you look closely out the window at one point in the video, the train appears to be blocking a crossing crossbuck. Signal does have some stuff like that behind HSF for training. I think they call it "JP" "interlocking", after retired signal instructor Joe P.

It looks like they also shut down the APS inverters, 'cause it's nice and quiet on the train. Just battery power. No inverter noises or HVAC noises.

They should have demonstrated the emergency door releases, instead of just showing them. Yeah, there's a red handle involved. What else?

I agree. Anyone who rides knows there is an emergency door release in the M-1 and M-3, but they should have shown how it works. For example, if you don't move the red handle over properly, and let it go back to it's origional position, the door closes on you again.
It's pretty pathetic that they didn't even bother to open the door operator access door on the M-1, to show what it looks like in there, and where the red handle is.

There is always the chance, that by educating the public how to open the door manually, that some idiot will use the emergency handle to bail out of a moving train because he just passed his stop. Then the lawsuit ensues. That might be what they were afraid of.
However, the right of the riding public at large to be able to safely evacuate outweighs the need to not show a moron intent on injuring himself how to do so. The rest is up to the courts to finally start telling these people, "You injured yourself because you're an idiot...Now go home...empty-handed...In fact, I'm declaring this a frivolous lawsuit...you and your attorney will pay all court costs."

Accountability. Common sense. Let's get them back in vogue.

Tom

I'm guessing they turned off the inverters to keep the EMI down, too.. Lots of harmonics comming from those things!

Hey what did I tell you! I just guessed at one of the yards, but I knew it was purely a demo out of luck. Thanks for the correction Tom.

with the M-7's if a pair is on fire and the Full withe cab doors the green ones are closed they should show you how to open them

Mr. Met,

You should not be finding cab doors blocking your way in the middle of the train. If you did find one in your way and locked in an emergency, and you're on the lock side of it, you would have to beat it and break it to open it. (The lock only opens with a door key.)

Tom

Welll...

The Metro-North version's up now!

They are virtualy identical - the running times are within 2 seconds (!). Scene by scene, they are the same. The scripts are nearly identical.

But, it's the subtle things that make the two different. I watched them both at the same time (Macintosh G5! - here's what I noticed:

* The announcer must have taken his happy pills the day of the MN shoot - he's just more upbeat sounding. The audio has a low frequency hum on the MN vid.

* Women with coffee cups have problems on LIRR trains, but not MN trains. In general, the LIRR passengers looked 1/2 dead, the MN ones only 1/3 dead.

* The MN crew beats the LIRR crew at getting the ladder out of the locker and to the door.

* The LIRR crew can get the evacuation board down with just one guy - the MN crew takes two.

* The MN passengers get off the M-7 and onto...a New Haven train! They also are less timid than the LIRR ones and unload faster.

* Both videos show the M-7s in action.

* The conductor on the MN train comes to help guy in car 4116 armed armed with his ticket puncher.

* On the LIRR, it's an unlikely event that the train crew can't assist you - you can still exit even if the power is off.

* On MN, it's an extremely unlikely event that the train crew is unable to assist you. - you can still exit even if the power is down.

* The emergency lever is in the same spot on the m-7s as it is on the LIRR, but on all other types of cars AND coaches, it's next to the door.

* The conductor on the LIRR does this nice hand waving around the emergency window showing you everything. On MN, he points and walks away.

* Note the announcer's blue shirt on the LIRR, white shiort on MN. And the different tie. Note the slightly different hairstyle, too. Oddly, he looks a touch thinner on the MN video than the LIRR. It's the same guy though.

* The color balance on the MN one drifts toward slightly warmer, the LIRR one drifts towards slightly cooler.

* The MN one mentions nothing about downed catenary and watching for it before evacuating. IMHO, this might not be a bad thing to include, since any major event where you have to evacuate without crew assistance on the NH line is likely to feature downed wires.

* Same poor door info on the MN video.

* LIRR - 17 meg cross platform MPEG. MN - 17 meg AVI or MOV.

All in all, they're the same...but different. Which makes them both fun to d/l and watch.

One thing though - avoid the announcer, he's <b>always</b> on a train that's being evacuated!!

I give them both credit for trying and in all honestly, both videos are quite good. Does anyone know if any other agencies have done these safety videos? It'd be interesting to see how Metra, the MBTA, NJT, etc deal with the same subject.

in the Mn video the accoment was not in the first car of the train. and where was the Mn video shot in croton harman

Finally watched the MNRR video.
There is one major technical mistake.
When a passenger pushes the Passenger Emergency Intercom button, the light on the PEI panel blinks until a trainman keys in to talk to the person. At that time, the PEI light at the calling station will not blink, but be steadily on.
If you watch that part of the MN video, the light is always blinking, which means that the "passenger" never actually spoke to the train crew on the PEI.
The stations are labeled to push the button and then "wait for steady light".

Tom

P.S. Note that which PEI station in the train is activated will appear on any CDP in any cab that is keyed in, including Engineer's. So, crew member would hopefully respond to the correct location anyway.
I just thought it mildly amusing that the video attempts to show how safety feature operates, and does so incorrectly.