Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption elsewhere - ongoing, since Oct 2014

[whole diary]

[Worcester_Passenger]

It just seems that the focus is doing these types of surveys, there's at least 4 of these a year and other "workshops" and events lord able as they are they do take away from the day job ............... which is running trains.

I have to disagree. The 'day job' isn't about running trains - it's about moving passengers and freight.

[Electric train]

It just seems that the focus is doing these types of surveys, there's at least 4 of these a year and other "workshops" and events lord able as they are they do take away from the day job ............... which is running trains.

I have to disagree. The 'day job' isn't about running trains - it's about moving passengers and freight.

Amounts to the same thing

[Oxonhutch]

Amounts to the same thing

With the greatest respect ET - and I speak as one intimately involved in railways - although that doesn't pay my mortgage. There is a perception amongst the paying public that many times their needs are low down the heap compared to keeping the big machine moving.

I think the Railway needs to address this and take on board that the customer is first - and wants/requires running trains. We all know that the railway would run seamlessly without passengers - ask me, I am a duty line manager on mine. But the system needs to reassess its messaging and realign its risk assessment/health and safety (established procedures) versus the comfort and basic needs of passengers.

It strikes me that there are not enough big voices in the management team to take command of the situation and say "just do that, and do it now!", and are prepared to accept as part of their remit (£££) that there might be a backlash, or criticism, in the future analysis.

I feel it is not so much 'risk' adverse as 'decision' adverse.

[AMLAG]

Extract from Andrew Haines communication of 8/12/23 concerning the major disruption incident  outside Paddington on the evening of Th 7/12/23.

“Thirdly, and importantly, we failed as a system. Too many individual actors seeing risk from their own perspective meant it was harder than it should have been to get things done whilst maintaining safety. Multiple self-evacuations, because of the pace at which we were able to move or even access trains, cannot be regarded as good safety practice.

Lastly, we have gone backwards on customer service. Tools to look after passengers that I would have used as a station manager in 1987 - before I'd even seen a mobile phone - were not available and we were hardly great at it then.
We can do better than we did last night when we take customers legitimate concerns seriously.”

[Electric train]

Amounts to the same thing

With the greatest respect ET - and I speak as one intimately involved in railways - although that doesn't pay my mortgage. There is a perception amongst the paying public that many times their needs are low down the heap compared to keeping the big machine moving.

I think the Railway needs to address this and take on board that the customer is first - and wants/requires running trains. We all know that the railway would run seamlessly without passengers - ask me, I am a duty line manager on mine. But the system needs to reassess its messaging and realign its risk assessment/health and safety (established procedures) versus the comfort and basic needs of passengers.

It strikes me that there are not enough big voices in the management team to take command of the situation and say "just do that, and do it now!", and are prepared to accept as part of their remit (£££) that there might be a backlash, or criticism, in the future analysis.

I feel it is not so much 'risk' adverse as 'decision' adverse.

Let me clarify my view as a professional railwayman of close on 50 years (I did start my railway career in 1975 with British Rail)

The railways were and remain to this day a complex operation, passenger trains are the most important part of the railway operation, I am a passenger myself! So is freight a failed / late running freight impacts passenger trains

How we as an industry treat, look after, protect our passengers is should be a vital part of the industry does and I totally agree with Andrew Haines, we the National rail industry let the travelling public down on that Thursday evening.  My current day job however is about supply vast amounts of electrical energy to the railway to ensure there is power for traction, signalling and whole host of ancillary equipment, which is all about keeping trains moving which I take extremely seriously.

I have in one of my past Network Rail engineering rolls worked on the emergency evacuation planning for the Thameslink core along side other NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Ops collages, LFB, BTP^▸ (British Transport Police), Met, City of London Police, GLA and 5 London Borough authorities, and whole host of other support organisations.   

[TaplowGreen]

Amounts to the same thing

With the greatest respect ET - and I speak as one intimately involved in railways - although that doesn't pay my mortgage. There is a perception amongst the paying public that many times their needs are low down the heap compared to keeping the big machine moving.

I think the Railway needs to address this and take on board that the customer is first - and wants/requires running trains. We all know that the railway would run seamlessly without passengers - ask me, I am a duty line manager on mine. But the system needs to reassess its messaging and realign its risk assessment/health and safety (established procedures) versus the comfort and basic needs of passengers.

It strikes me that there are not enough big voices in the management team to take command of the situation and say "just do that, and do it now!", and are prepared to accept as part of their remit (£££) that there might be a backlash, or criticism, in the future analysis.

I feel it is not so much 'risk' adverse as 'decision' adverse.

Let me clarify my view as a professional railwayman of close on 50 years (I did start my railway career in 1975 with British Rail)

The railways were and remain to this day a complex operation, passenger trains are the most important part of the railway operation, I am a passenger myself! So is freight a failed / late running freight impacts passenger trains

How we as an industry treat, look after, protect our passengers is should be a vital part of the industry does and I totally agree with Andrew Haines, we the National rail industry let the travelling public down on that Thursday evening.  My current day job however is about supply vast amounts of electrical energy to the railway to ensure there is power for traction, signalling and whole host of ancillary equipment, which is all about keeping trains moving which I take extremely seriously.

I have in one of my past Network Rail engineering rolls worked on the emergency evacuation planning for the Thameslink core along side other NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Ops collages, LFB, BTP^▸ (British Transport Police), Met, City of London Police, GLA and 5 London Borough authorities, and whole host of other support organisations.   

As a long serving professional railwayman with experience of emergency evacuation planning, can you advise which one person would have been in overall control of recent events where you had GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), HEX and Elizabeth Line trains stranded and would have ultimately have made the decisions and the call on all those trains being evacuated?

Not a witch hunt, not looking for a name, more like a role - ie would it fall under the remit of a senior Network Rail manager, or someone else?

[Electric train]

Amounts to the same thing

With the greatest respect ET - and I speak as one intimately involved in railways - although that doesn't pay my mortgage. There is a perception amongst the paying public that many times their needs are low down the heap compared to keeping the big machine moving.

I think the Railway needs to address this and take on board that the customer is first - and wants/requires running trains. We all know that the railway would run seamlessly without passengers - ask me, I am a duty line manager on mine. But the system needs to reassess its messaging and realign its risk assessment/health and safety (established procedures) versus the comfort and basic needs of passengers.

It strikes me that there are not enough big voices in the management team to take command of the situation and say "just do that, and do it now!", and are prepared to accept as part of their remit (£££) that there might be a backlash, or criticism, in the future analysis.

I feel it is not so much 'risk' adverse as 'decision' adverse.

Let me clarify my view as a professional railwayman of close on 50 years (I did start my railway career in 1975 with British Rail)

The railways were and remain to this day a complex operation, passenger trains are the most important part of the railway operation, I am a passenger myself! So is freight a failed / late running freight impacts passenger trains

How we as an industry treat, look after, protect our passengers is should be a vital part of the industry does and I totally agree with Andrew Haines, we the National rail industry let the travelling public down on that Thursday evening.  My current day job however is about supply vast amounts of electrical energy to the railway to ensure there is power for traction, signalling and whole host of ancillary equipment, which is all about keeping trains moving which I take extremely seriously.

I have in one of my past Network Rail engineering rolls worked on the emergency evacuation planning for the Thameslink core along side other NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Ops collages, LFB, BTP^▸ (British Transport Police), Met, City of London Police, GLA and 5 London Borough authorities, and whole host of other support organisations.   

As a long serving professional railwayman with experience of emergency evacuation planning, can you advise which one person would have been in overall control of recent events where you had GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), HEX and Elizabeth Line trains stranded and would have ultimately have made the decisions and the call on all those trains being evacuated?

Not a witch hunt, not looking for a name, more like a role - ie would it fall under the remit of a senior Network Rail manager, or someone else?

The event would (should) have escalated from Bronze to Silver to Gold command.  These command levels are an agreed process with the Blue Light Services and within Railway Industry. 

The NR Region will have a Silver Command "suite" a dedicated meeting room with all the tech resources, the lead on Silver is a NR Region / Route Director level with TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) or multiple TOC equivalents. 

Gold is National level which will be lead by Regional Route Managing Director or senior National Executive.

There is an on-call roster for all the excusive, director and senior leads National, Regional, Route level (including myself but I am not part of Wales and Western)

Generally the "command" process works very well.  I am sure there is a lesson learned on the "command" process in this incident (as there is for every time its used)

The ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) should have opened an investigation, although they may, as they often do, wait to see what comes out of the internal investigations 

[GBM]

Thank you ElectricTrain, a much appreciated explanation.
Just out of curiosity, when the final report on the failure is released, might you and other region managers have access to it to see the learning points?

[Electric train]

Thank you ElectricTrain, a much appreciated explanation.
Just out of curiosity, when the final report on the failure is released, might you and other region managers have access to it to see the learning points?

The detailed report will be circulated, the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) will require that a public version to be published

[TaplowGreen]

Thank you ElectricTrain, a much appreciated explanation.
Just out of curiosity, when the final report on the failure is released, might you and other region managers have access to it to see the learning points?

The detailed report will be circulated, the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) will require that a public version to be published

It'll be interesting to see their conclusions on whether or not any of the learnings from the Lewisham train stranding incident in 2018 had been put into practice.

[JayMac]

The Lewisham incident was investigated by the RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch). Has there been any indication that this incident will be investigated by them?

[NickB]

I don’t think that was what TaplowGreen was implying. He was asking whether lessons about ineffective evacuations have been learnt to prevent them reoccurring.

[Electric train]

The Lewisham incident was investigated by the RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch). Has there been any indication that this incident will be investigated by them?

RAIB will be interested and will be investigating 

[ChrisB]

They have yet to send out their notification of thus doing

[Electric train]

The Lewisham incident was investigated by the RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch). Has there been any indication that this incident will be investigated by them?

The Lewisham incident involved a mass self detraining of passengers, the recent GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) incident outside Paddington did not involve a mass self detraining.   

Passengers in the GWML outside Paddington may have been greatly inconvenienced and the lack of welfare (heat, water, toilets) but they were is a place of safety i.e. not immediate threat to life or of injury by remaining on the train.

The RIAB I am sure will have been in contact with Network Rail and the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) and they maybe satisfied that the internal railway investigations are robust enough.  The RAIB investigators are hold a warrant (same as the police) so when the RIAB interview a witness the witness is placed under caution, the witness will say they want their solicitor present which adds time and cost.  Internal investigations whist not having the power of under caution are more collaborative, however if the lead investigator (and these are trained individuals to a similar level as RIAB) come across anything that is criminal of serious safety related they will not hesitate to had the case over to BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) or RIAB