Sadly another 'person hit by a train' at Southall

[whole diary]

[CJB666]

Last night sadly another 'person was hit by a train' at Southall yesterday evening. All lines were 'blocked' for hours.

I guess hundreds missed their flights because Heathrow Ltd. (not fit for purpose) did not bother to arrange alternative transportation from Paddington to the Airport. Par for the course. Neither were there any Heathrow Express staff visible on duty to advise intending airline passengers.

Meanwhile hundreds of commuters were trying to get home from Paddington to Reading / Oxford. The fastest HST^▸ (High Speed Train) advertised was for 00.20. However a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) local eventually left from platform 14 at about 23.00 - it  was advertised as terminating at Didcot. It was of course going to Oxford - but only regular commuters knew that.

Quite why GWR persist in this nonsense of not advertising the true destination of a departure from Paddington is a moot point anyway, but to continue to do so when there is a major disruption is unacceptable.

Then the train called at Ealing Broadway and Hayes & Harlington and beyond - BUT MISSED OUT SOUTHALL. The on-board CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) display clearly stated that it would be calling at Southall, as did the CIS display at Ealing Broadway. This might have been understandable - BUT THE DRIVER MADE NO WARNING ANNOUNCEMENT(S). So at Hayes & Harlington there were a number of pi$$ed off commuters wondering how to get back to Southall. Some didn't even know what had happened.

Bearing in mind the regular occurrence of these sad incidents it appears that GWR and Heathrow are still woefully short of effectively managing such major disruptions. 

C.J.Brady

[Adelante_CCT]

I guess hundreds missed their flights because Heathrow Ltd. (not fit for purpose) did not bother to arrange alternative transportation from Paddington to the Airport.

The obvious is via tube, under an hour via district and picc adding 30-45 minutes on to journey times. Assuming pax were aiming to arrive LHR 2/3 + hours before departure as advised then nobody 'should' have missed their flights.

[chrisr_75]

I guess hundreds missed their flights because Heathrow Ltd. (not fit for purpose) did not bother to arrange alternative transportation from Paddington to the Airport.

The obvious is via tube, under an hour via district and picc adding 30-45 minutes on to journey times. Assuming pax were aiming to arrive LHR 2/3 + hours before departure as advised then nobody 'should' have missed their flights.

And numerous bus services from Victoria Coach Station, Uxbridge and other assorted west London suburbs which are accessible by tube, all <= 1.5 hrs from Paddington, so I agree, no-one should've missed any flights, especially with so much information readily to hand with such a large number of people having mobile internet access and such like these days.

To the OP^▸ (Original Poster / topic starter) - I would suggest your criticism of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)/NR^» (Network Rail - home page)/Heathrow is a little unfair in these circumstances. They are entirely unpredictable and highly variable in nature. They can vary from a suicide or an innocent accident through to murder, so all possibilities need to be covered before BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) can allow the railway to resume operations. GWR/NR have no idea when this will happen whilst events are unfolding and the longer it takes, the more trains/crews out of position and/or hours. Bear in mind you may also have a desperately shocked driver who cannot proceed - it may be difficult to get a relief driver out to the train, which may of course be damaged, and you've got a train blocking a line and possibly even a junction. It may also take a great deal of time to locate and recover the remains, especially after dark as they could be dealing with anything from a mostly intact body through to filling a bag with tiny pieces.

Can you suggest how better GWR/NR/Heathrow might manage such an unpredictable and variable event? Do you think LHR should have a huge fleet of coaches on standby for these incidents? Who would pay for these?

[grahame]

Firstly - at these times thoughts with the staff involved in the immediate are, the friends and relatives of the person involved and indeed the person him/herself should they have escaped with their life.

Information at these times is key, and with Heathrow especially we should remember that many of the passengers caught by the incident won't know to pop down into the underground, take a district train marked "Wimbledon" to Earl's Court and change to the Piccadilly line there.  Contingency coaches?   No.  Contingency leaflets?  Maybe; it's not even beyond the realms of possibility to have a 40 page a minute printer in one of the staff areas that can print such things out from dozens of options.

Yet the information will never be totally accurate in a changing situation.  "You'll be at the airport soonest if you take the tube" can turn out to be incorrect if a line's handed back quicker than expected.

Sympathy both ways; things will get a bit heated and, yes, occasionally people will miss their flights unless the airline's requests for people to arrive early are being made purely so that people can spend longer in the retail lounges, restaurants and bars helping to fund the airport 

[stuving]

The first HX train to be disrupted was due at 21:37, and the next one that ran arrived at 22:56. The last flight was due to take off at 22:50, and he last domestic flight at 22:00. So in practice no-one could really have missed a flight, unless they were relying on some kind of special status for late boarding. Crew similarly would not be that late arriving.

Getting into London to catch a train from another terminus would be quite different, though - I imagine quite a few people will have had that problem.

[chrisr_75]

Just to add, I can remember on several occasions being in a similar situation when travelling to Schiphol airport in the Netherlands by train from The Hague. So, main regional intercity line linking the Randstad cities of Rotterdam, The Hague & Amsterdam via Schiphol, services fall over for whatever reason resulting in last minute diversions, cancellations, changes to stopping patterns and so on. Very little information (the usual handy bilingual announcements often get quickly forgotten when the pressure is on a bit) and very last minute changes to services, so it's not just in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) that this happens, it's everywhere, just the way it is!

Best just to chill out and accept that random things do happen from time to time and that you're in a much better place than the poor sod who didn't go home that night. (PS I'm not including general rubbishness such as the raft of signalling problems on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) last year, just truly random, severe events such as what happened last night)

[Billhere]

It is very easy to be critical of how whoever it is deals with these matters but the sad fact is that somebody has come into contact with a train and as is the case with these things they tend to be terminal most of the times.

Sometimes clean, sometimes very messy, so is it fair that passengers should be able to glimpse the aftermath of one of these incidents in order to keep trains running so they can get home on time, or slightly late? -  I don't think so. Incidentally Drivers have the option, or not, of driving past the scene of one of these incidents and cannot be forced to do so.

As it is everything comes to a stand until such time as the remains have been removed, or covered over. I remember many years ago of having the service at a stand for close on two hours while waiting to have a Doctor come to certify death. As much as it may be obvious until you have the official medical pronouncement then that person is actually alive. A Scottish Police Sergeant was heavily censored many years ago in a Coroners Court by the representative of the deceased family because he had decided that person was dead. When asked why that was he remarked "Well the head was ten feet away from the body so he must have been". Not good enough apparently, it had to be a Doctor to say it. Things have changed now but death still has to be pronounced by a medial person.

Recently the rule was changed slightly and trains on unaffected lines were allowed to run. It was stopped shortly after when passengers complained they had seen the remains still laying in the track, and several were taken ill.

The reaction overall, especially at peak times , is a complete disaster for all ops staff, whether on the platform, or in the Control. Contingencies are all very well but that is dependant on everything being in the right place, with the correct crews in the cab. It falls to pieces very quickly. As we used to say "Thirty minutes to put in an emergency service, three hours to get out of it". Train crews and units get displaced very quickly. My own personal estimate used to be closed for two hours, anything under that a bonus.

At a place like Paddington there are a number of alternatives available, I wasn't there so I can't say how it was handled. The first thing is that permission must be obtained from other companies to pass rail tickets. That only takes a few minutes, so people could be on the move relatively quickly. It is a very fluid situation and as somebody has remarked you don't know the situation on other forms of transport.

Meanwhile back at the ranch somebody is going about gathering what parts there are, covering them over, washing down any platforms, and covering small patches with sand. It all takes time.

Very harsh criticism there, I don't know what the alternative is to sort it so people can get moving again.

[Billhere]

I will just add a bit to all that, the reason he train did not call at Southall may have been that the Station was effectively closed while things were cleared up. Why the Driver did not announce that, only he can answer.

Just to put you in the picture about what happens at the scene. The person in overall charge is the RIO^▸ (Rail Incident Officer) (Railway Incident Officer) who is normally the local MOM^▸ (Mobile Operations Manager) (Mobile Ops Manager) who have a roaming commission to deal with any incidents that affect the running of trains.

The BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) will attend to decide whether it is a crime scene or not. Any other attendees are non railway and have to be given a safety briefing before they set foot on the line. This all takes time.

The undertakers are part of the Dignitas group who are on call for this sort of thing. They have to arrive to start picking up the remains. Civil Police may well have been first on the scene and have to be stopped from roaming about to stop themselves becoming casualties if the line is open. (Amazing how many Police think they have a right to be there and that the safety rules do not apply to them). Specialist cleaning teams will also have to arrive to hose down platforms and the immediate area if required. Arrival time on the scene? - anybody's guess which is why the situation is so fluid.

Personally never had that experience, but had the effects of trying to sort it out once the trains start moving. A lot to take into consideration, and the behaviour, good and bad, of train crew have to be dealt with on the hoof which is why you think the train is going to one place and then goes on to another, or it stops short.

Sorry if I have gone on a bit but there is a lot happening out of sight of those standing on a platform a few miles away. The day after the Ladbroke Grove tragedy one of our Customer Information Controllers picked up a call from an irate lady wanting to know why her journey was going to disrupted, and on being told wanted to know why it hadn't been cleared up so she could travel. Believe it? -  I couldn't, but then I was busy marshalling eighty buses from all over to try and get people into London as we were only allowed to go as far as Slough initially, and later Ealing Broadway.

[John R]

In this instance 4 HEX services were cancelled, so as Stuving has noted, a delay of just over an hour.  Given the time that it would have taken to organise buses, they would have probably just set off when the line reopened, so passengers would have arrived later than hanging on for the line to reopen.  Similarly those that went via the tube unless they were the first affected.

If there had been flights that people might have missed then they always have the option of a taxi.  Expensive yes, but probably worth it if the alternative was a 24 hour delay on a long haul flight with no guarantee that the airline would honour their ticket or that space would be available.  If a journey is that important, then as others have noted, you really need to allow a bit more time, just in case something like this happens. You can't blame the railway or expect them to magic up an alternative at the wave of a magic wand.

Sympathies to all those affected by last night's tragic event.