Great Western Coffee Shop

A person was struck by a train today, at about 4 pm, to the west of Nailsea & Backwell Station. The train involved was the 15:07 Taunton to Cardiff.

There were delays of up to 60 minutes to subsequent train services, and disruption continued until around 6 pm. First Great Western passengers were being advised they may use First Somerset and Avon buses on reasonable routes.

My own journey home from Bristol Temple Meads this evening was delayed, and on arriving by train at Nailsea & Backwell Station I saw a coach marked 'First Great Western Rail Replacement Service' turn onto the road down to the station, apparently containing those who had not been able to board previously delayed and / or cancelled trains to the West.

Fair play to First Great Western for dealing with the situation so efficiently, and best wishes for a speedy recovery to the person who was struck by the train.

Sadly, the person hit by the train died.  From the Bristol Post (http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Person-hit-train-near-Nailsea-Backwell-station/story-22290020-detail/story.html):

Suicide unfortunately...

Male accessed the line somehow and stepped infront of the DMU.

Nasty business, especially for the traincrew & the personell who attended the incident.

Didn't stop people gawking at the front of the unit when it arrived at N&B afterwards.

A word of caution - that's likely to be correct, but prior to an inquest verdict we can't be sure and should not prejudge.  This forum has numerous previous examples of such assumptions that have turned out to be quite a way from the truth.

Agree 100% - Admins - can the level of detail used in some of the "person under a train" related posts be monitored please - this isn't the first time an unnecessarily detailed account of such an incident has been posted (I am sure with the best of motives), I recall the same following a suicide at Slough recently, it has the potential to cause distress and we never know who else might see it (in that particular case a family member of the deceased responded if memory serves)......I don't think we need any more detail than the fact that it has happened in all honesty?

Posts on this sensitive subject are indeed watched far more closely than 'typical' forum posts, always bearing in mind that people with immediate concern and involvement are very likely to read them.  The person hit by a train will have had friends and relatives and indeed have been a real person and we should not / never forget that or them.

Many / most forums do indeed suppress far more detail than we do; here there's something of a conscious attempt to explain and to help people find answers and closure rather than just to hide the situation / circumstances and appear to pretend it's not happened.    We do cut detail / assumptions as appropriate, yes ... but we've also gone to the extend of putting together a link that helps explain the total scenario of circumstances to these to people - it's at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/phbt

But ... it IS difficult.  We're not encouraging detail for details' sake - no way - but suppressing as much as possible could take away a very real opportunity to help people who are linked to the incident.  And, yes, we know we have provided such help in the past - we may well do so again in the future, though the ideal solution would for there to never be such a need.

Apologies for causing any undue distress!? I dont think there was any unneccessary level of detail atall.

Person hit by a train always implies to me that 'the nasty train has hit an innocent person who was going about their business' & almost all of the time this is not the case!

I also felt it neccessary to highlight that despite the incident, many 'customers' clearly aren't that distressed by it all as they could simply not resist the urge to rubberneck. The rest couldn't really give a dam - the 'obstruction on the line' is a terrible inconveniance that is going to make them late.

Fortunately because of the location of this incident, no public bystanders were present but as with previous instances, such as the Slough example & a more recent fatality at Parsons Street, some people were unfortunte enough to witness the incident and no amount of media sensoring will ever benefit them.

One positive from this however, is a technique that I will use in future for dealing with kids who ask questions when stuck on an involved train - the mother cleverly convinced them that the train had a flat tyre and it was being fixed. When they finally started moving again, the kids were heard to celebrate that the tyre had been changed & the train was moving again - Ahh, the innocence of childhood.

But if you're going to care / give a damn, you need something to care about.  And of necessity, there is little or no information available as happenings of this sort unfold.

You'll note the admin / moderation team taking a slightly uneasy compromise here;  I intentionally left Sprog's full original post in place having taken a deep breath (and I'm doing the same with follow ups thus far) ... that's an acknowledgement of the desirability to air the issues of just how far we go in documenting these things, how we provide information and support, etc. But having discussed it and aired those issues, let's move on.   I am not, however, locking the thread as we may find that more information comes out from which we can learn, and perhaps learn more to be more compassionate too.

A couple of comments from me, if I may - based on my fairly obvious local knowledge?


Pedestrian access to the main line to the west of Nailsea & Backwell Station is legitimate: there is a public footpath crossing there, which has been discussed before on this forum, at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=13197.msg146076#msg146076


On my own return journey home that evening, on a delayed departure from Bristol Temple Meads, a mother with two young boys dealt very similarly with enquiries from them as to 'why isn't the train moving yet?'  She suggested that perhaps the driver needed to go and have a wee - which satisfied their concerns admirably.

The coroner's inquest into the sad incident back in August has concluded that it was indeed suicide.