Train overshoots Pewsey station - Driver forgot to stop!

[whole diary]

[grahame]

And now Hayes and Harlington in Get West London

A train driver angered commuters waiting at Hayes and Harlington station, when he completely FORGOT to stop.

Passengers were left baffled after the Great Western Railway train, which departed Paddington, did not call at Hayes as normal.

The train was due to call at Hayes and Harlington station at 6.14pm on Thursday (July 27) but passengers were quick to point out the error to the driver.

A passenger who needed to disembark at Hayes, told getwestlondon: "Everybody was knocking on the engine room.

"He didn't open the door because he was talking on the phone and he covered his face.

"People on the train were upset, and people were getting so angry at the station as they wanted to get on the train.

"The driver just said 'Sorry, my mistake, I forgot that stop'."

[Adelante_CCT]

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, it suggests it did stop at Hayes.

[Louis94]

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, 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.

[Surrey 455]

And now Hayes and Harlington in Get West London

A passenger who needed to disembark at Hayes, told getwestlondon: "Everybody was knocking on the engine room.

"He didn't open the door because he was talking on the phone and he covered his face.

"People on the train were upset, and people were getting so angry at the station as they wanted to get on the train.

"The driver just said 'Sorry, my mistake, I forgot that stop'."

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?

[plymothian]

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

[TaplowGreen]

And now Hayes and Harlington in Get West London

A passenger who needed to disembark at Hayes, told getwestlondon: "Everybody was knocking on the engine room.

"He didn't open the door because he was talking on the phone and he covered his face.

"People on the train were upset, and people were getting so angry at the station as they wanted to get on the train.

"The driver just said 'Sorry, my mistake, I forgot that stop'."

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?

No doubt CCTV^▸ (Closed Circuit Tele Vision) 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"!

[IndustryInsider]

I expect he was 'on the phone' (actually, probably the GSM-R^▸ (Global System for Mobile communications - Railway.) 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.