Great Western Coffee Shop

A train driver overshot a station by nearly a quarter of a mile after allegedly forgetting to stop, forcing passengers to take a 22-mile detour.

The Great Western Rail (GWR) train is believed to have had hundreds of commuters on board when it failed to stop at Pewsey, Wiltshire.

The driver was forced to continue to Westbury, the next station, which is more than 20 miles away, with commuters told the train could not reverse back to the platform.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/20/train-overshoots-station-after-driver-forgets-to-stop-sending-pa/

Purely in the interests of accuracy, this incident occurred on Friday 14 October 2016.

Indeed it was. I am rather surprised no-one has mentioned it on here up till now.

In the 80's I was on a train between Portsmouth and Southampton which overshot a station and the driver simply reversed back to the platform!

I was on a metropolitan line train on the Uxbridge branch a couple of years ago which overshot a station by over half a train length. Similarly it carried on to the next stop, albeit very slowly. I believe it is a relatively common occurrence when the driver is faced with clear signals and simply forgets to stop or misses his/her braking points - obviously ATP of whatever flavour should prevent anything dangerous happening. Somewhat more inconvenient to be over carried on the national network where the next station could be 30-40 minutes or so further down the line in some cases!

The distance between Pewsey and Westbury must also be one of the largest between 2 stations in the GWR network?

Pewsey – Westbury is 20.25 miles.  Didcot – Swindon is 23 miles and Swindon – Bristol Parkway (probably the longest gap) is 34.5 miles.

What's the Castle Cary to Taunton distance?

27.5 miles

Thanks guys - how little I know! (surprised Didcot to Swindon is that far).

Still, it's a long way to take the pax past the stop they hoped to get off at :-(

would the new driver's advisory system (or whatever it is called) not remind a driver that s/he needs to stop??

It tells you the next stop, but doesn't alert you to the next stop by making a noise or anything.  Something which would be pretty easy to do and would cut down the number of fail to calls and station overruns at a stroke.

According to a number of tweets on Twitter, on Monday evening (5th Dec) a GWR train failed to stop at Pewsey AGAIN!

This time it was the 1C91 1733 Paddington to Paignton service.

RTT confirms it: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C41508/2016/12/05/advanced
What is the implication for drivers? Are they given a reprimand if they forget to stop?

The newspaper article manages to contradict itself.

If, as stated in the third paragraph, the distance between Pewsey and Westbury is more than 20 miles (its is actually 20 miles and 22 chains) then the detour quoted in the first paragraph must be 40 miles and not 22!

It counts as an operational incident and unless it's not their fault (i.e not due to leaf fall, or a diagram error) they will go on a CDP (Competence Development Plan) which involves extra monitoring of them for a defined period.  Should they have a similar incident again within 5 years (also includes other things such as a fail to call, door release on the wrong side etc.), then a longer and more detailed plan would be started and three or more within 5 years and you start getting into safety review meetings and possible removal from driving.

Thanks II!

In some circumstances I have heard it can be regarded as a criminal matter, and the consequences can be serious - Go to Jail, do not pass Pewsey, do not collect £200.

A fail to call is very unlikely, in isolation, to be a criminal matter.

Combined with a SPAD, leading to collision, derailment or injury, or other serious safety incident, then more likely for a driver to have his or her collar felt.

............I wasn't being entirely serious, it wasn't an attempt to monopolise the discussion  ;)

Just visiting this thread again. I figured there was a chance you were being light hearted.  :P

I'm hearing that the driver of the second incident didn't even brake....sailed straight through

There's two classifications for not stopping at a booked station.  A 'station overrun', where a braking attempt has been made, and a 'fail to call' where no braking attempt was made.  The numbers of instances of each type are pretty similar to each other.  A 'fail to call' or 'station overrun' could be caused by similar reasons such as the driver forgetting he was supposed to stop at that station, but a 'station overrun' could also be due to slippery conditions and a 'fail to call' due to an error on the printed diagram the driver works to.  Both are treated in exactly the same way in terms of seriousness.

So, in the case of approaching Pewsey at speed, it might be that upon sighting it the driver realises they're supposed to call (cue an expletive) and applies the emergency brake but not quite in time.  Or it might be that as he/she passes the station he/she realises they were supposed to call, but it's far too late so there's no point in trying to stop.

And the instructions for a Fail to call? Presumably to stop at the next station, whetgher or not scheduled to call?

Most likely to stop at the next station, yes, but it can depend on the location and the train in question, and also when (as the driver) you've realised your error.  For example, if you were on a HST heading to London and missed Castle Cary then it would usually be best to continue to Westbury rather than stop at Bruton.  Basically you would report it and follow the instructions of Control and/or the Signaller.

Would the driver expect to be relieved from duty as per with a SPAD? I would imagine the realisation of forgetting to stop somewhere or overshooting in slippery conditions could have quite an adverse effect on your concentration and/or general stress levels.

It depends on the circumstances.  A driver with a clean record not on a development plan doing a minor overshoot at a small station where part of the train is still platformed might be deemed OK to continue until the end of the shift.  Anyone with 'previous' would probably be relieved of their duties.  Also, the driver themselves would be free to deem themselves unfit to continue.

From Deadline News (http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2016/12/20/scotrail-reach-new-low-driver-forgets-stop-station/):


Croy's another one of those stations where some services are booked to call and others on the same route and driven from the same pool aren't ...

And if the pattern was fast from Castle Cary to Reading, what then? Bruton, Pewsey, Newbury or Reading? Or would he stop somewhere between Bruton and Fairwood, and ask to be put in to Westbury? I guess in practice that Cary would have alerted Control who make the decision for him.

In that case I would imagine a special stop at Westbury would probably be arranged.

Apparently a XC Voyager was caught on Dawlish Beach cam overshooting Dawlish today. After a few minutes the train reversed back into Dawlish. I'm guessing this is the one: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P30969/2016/12/22/advanced
Video here: https://www.facebook.com/dawlishbeach/

And now Hayes and Harlington in Get West London (http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/baffled-commuters-angered-train-driver-13401327)

I know open data sources aren't always correct, but usually when a train misses a stop it will just show the departure time with n/a for the arrival time, however on this occasion (http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P04621/2017/07/27/advanced), it suggests it did stop at Hayes.

That's just one of many ways a fail to call could present itself, although it'll be 'n/r' meaning No report. On this occasion it is more than likely the train was running under cautionary aspects and therefore because of the way arrival and departure times are reported it could easily look like the train stopped as normal.

If the passenger was already on the train how does he or she know that people waiting to get on were "so angry"? Were they able to establish that by looking at the expressions on their faces in the fractions of a second as the train went past?

Unless the driver managed to stop the train with part of the train still on the platform.

No doubt CCTV will confirm one way or the other, and if it's proven to be the case that he was on the phone we will have one more "driver shortage"!

I expect he was 'on the phone' (actually, probably the GSM-R handset) reporting that he'd had a 'fail to call' to the signaller.  Though, yes, if the incident was caused because he'd been using a mobile phone on the move then the Unions don't want to know and it would be goodbye time.