Plans from Network Rail - radical station redesign to reduce suicides?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From The Independent

Train stations across the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) are set to be radically redesigned in a bid to cut the number of suicides, according to plans being drafted by Network Rail.

Tube-style platform-edge doors, new lighting, seating that faces away from the tracks and additional barriers will form part of a new blueprint to reduce the number of people taking their lives at stations.

Other proposals being looked at include infra-red beams to alert station staff to people near the end of the platform, flashing stud floor lighting and painted crosshatching to discourage those considering taking their own life from waiting in isolated parts of the station.

Waiting rooms or toilets halfway along platforms would also go under guidance requiring clear sight lines for railway staff along the entire length of the station.

The blueprint, to be published in April, will initially be advisory but could become mandatory if changes to stations are not made.

[continues]

[johnneyw]

What? All stations or just the busier ones with an unfortunate history in these matters? Cannot see St Andrews Road or similar station being the recipient of that sort of expenditure.

[stuving]

What? All stations or just the busier ones with an unfortunate history in these matters? Cannot see St Andrews Road or similar station being the recipient of that sort of expenditure.

I think you've been misled by that headline which, as is now customary in "journalism", has nothing to do with the story. Later on comes this:

Mr Stevens said limited changes would be made to existing stations – either because they were listed buildings or because of the amount of people using them – but that new build stations would see more radical redesigns.

“At the top end of the range are platform edge doors, like you get on the Jubilee Line, because we know that they are very effective, but we cannot retrofit them in this country because a lot of our platforms can’t support the weight,” he said.

(Ian Stevens is head of suicide prevention at Network Rail.)

[grahame]

What? All stations or just the busier ones with an unfortunate history in these matters? Cannot see St Andrews Road or similar station being the recipient of that sort of expenditure.

Clearly vital at Barry Links, Sugar Loaf, Brigg  and British Steel Redcar. 

How will they get the doors lined up at stations served today by a mixture of classes 143, 150, 153, 158 and perhaps a few Castles and IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train)?

Waiting rooms or toilets halfway along platforms would also go under guidance requiring clear sight lines for railway staff along the entire length of the station.

Rather suggests staffed stations with dispatch staff, unstaffed platforms with platforms on the inside of curves, or a story that someone has got half baked and misquoted in the headline!

[MVR S&T]

At Hinton Admiral, a short walk from my front door, there have been at least 6 suicude in the last 10 years, some old some young and female, the one I witnessed, so none of the measures would have saved any of the lives. dont think there will ever be an answer to prevent the waste of life, just will move it to smaller stations, or away from stations to open lines, if you want to commit suicide on a railway, you will find a way, after all nothing else matters...

[grahame]

In an ideal world everything would be protected so there is no chance of suicide (or accidental tripping into the path of a train, falling over drunk, being pushed, being silly and straying on the tracks, missing level crossings ...) in front of trains.    This is not an ideal world; put in measure that prevent it at "A" and a proportion of people taking deliberate actions will move to other locations or methods - either with immediate effect or at a later time or date, and whether or not those people were identified and helped by anyone if they tried to find access but were prevented.  Sadly, it looks like it's the maths of proportions - that's no excuse not to do the sums and try to do the very best we can.

A station redesign is, I fear, going to cost money - push the price of station renewal and (re)opening up. Not only "ooze gonna pay for it?" but also "can we find enough money to do it here?".  There is also "what's it going to cost to operate and maintain".  And hard choices need to be made between providing facilities to the new design, providing facilities that go a long way to meeting the design, providing facilities at a low(er) cost that are little (if any) safer than today, and not/ no longer providing a station / railway at all.

I don't have to hand the cost of re-opening Melksham Station in 1985, but it was not huge - a four figure sum, I believe. Contrast that to Kenilworth at £13.6 million, with an controversial opening ceremony that, if my maths is right, cost almost as much as the entire works at Melksham 30 years earlier.  We need to take steps to ensure that we invest in our railways to make them as safe as possible, including saving people from themselves, but to do so in a way that would keep our rail network in tact rather than reducing it to the economics of Serpell option B or even A.

From Wikipedia

Option A was a "commercial" network, in which the railways as a whole would make a profit. This scenario would have seen the route mileage reduced by 84%, and annual passenger-miles reduced by 56%. The only main lines left would have been London-Bristol/Cardiff, London-Birmingham-Liverpool/Manchester-Glasgow/Edinburgh, and London-Leeds/Newcastle. Some major commuter lines in the southeast would have been retained; all other lines would have disappeared completely. The passenger sector would still make a small loss, but this would be offset by profits from the freight sector.

Option B was similar to Option A, with allowances for the cost of congestion caused by removing rail links. If the removal of a line in Option A would cause a greater cost to the country in terms of increased road congestion than would be saved in removing the line, then the line was retained under Option B. This scenario would have seen the route mileage reduced by 78%, and annual passenger-miles reduced by 45%. The network would have been as per Option A, but with the addition of most of the London commuter lines, plus the London-Westbury section of the Great Western Main Line.

[TaplowGreen]

I wonder how much things such as GWRs^▸ (Great Western Railway) daft "Famous Five" advertising campaign cost (which achieved nothing other than ridicule and parody), and whether that money could have been better spent on laudable schemes such as suicide prevention?

[Red Squirrel]

Actually the more I think about this, the more it sounds like a complete disaster in the making. Even introducing a hint of doubt into the tenuous and fraught process of opening new stations could effectively kick all local schemes into the long grass forever, whilst allowing megalomaniac vanity projects to continue consuming billions of pounds. What would be the point on forcing a new Ashley Down station to have platform edge doors if the previous and next stations on the line didn't have them?

Safety is important, and suicide is traumatic for everyone touched by it, but this proposal seems almost designed to slow down or stop the already glacial process of expanding the network. Meanwhile, bus lanes that allow buses to drive at full speed a few centimetres from pavements crowded with shoppers are acceptable, and pedestrians can, by right and rightly, walk across major roads. If people can't jump under trains, will they jump under buses instead? How would they stop that?

[Dispatch Box]

I think they need to tackle the problem of why people commit suicide in the first place, Mainly it is caused by homelessness according to a bbc 1 news report I saw before Christmas, And on there it said that the government was proposing to end it by 2027. Everybody will get a home. It said councils must do more.

On the railways I Think a little bit of common sense should prevail.

1. Make sure all through trains to platforms have red signals at the end, where there are staff.
2. Platform starting signals have to be cleared by pressing a TRTS^▸ (Train Ready To Start. A plunger/switch pressed by platform dispatch staff that informs the signaller that a train is ready to depart.) button as at BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI)) already. And not press the button until they are sure there is nobody on end of platform
3. All freight trains use the middle lines at stations where possible.
4. At Swindon I have noticed on Opentraintimes that ARS^▸ (Automatic Route Setting) is doing this with freights coming from London, by routing around plat 4.
5. At gloucester freights come through plats 1 and 2 at speed which is dangerous, But can use middle road, but is due to idiotic signallers.

A Suicide there about 4 years ago was encouraged by this, a boy went to the end of plat 2.as freight thundered past.
At a lot of stations, freights do go through middle roads but I have not heard of any deaths at these stations.
And at stations, like Cheltenham, Could a speed restriction be imposed where freights run though two line stations.
I think some of these measures should help. And many are available without spending money, Just station precedures
needing an update.

I know at Gloucester where I am, is after the one noted above that they put Samaritan signs on lamp-posts, seems to have reduced them.

[grahame]

I think they need to tackle the problem of why people commit suicide in the first place,

I 110% agree - but I think "they" are doing and both need to be done in parallel.  If you prevent 3 in 4 in every even getting to the railway, and 3 in 4 of the remainder by the things done at the railway, you're preventing 15 out of 16.

On the railways I Think a little bit of common sense should prevail.

Totally - but analysis is undertaken and perhaps extra work to work out what WOULD make a difference.  Not on my main laptop here so I'll leave looking at the individual comments until I've got more screen space at home.

[Dispatch Box]

I think they need to tackle the problem of why people commit suicide in the first place,

I 110% agree - but I think "they" are doing and both need to be done in parallel.  If you prevent 3 in 4 in every even getting to the railway, and 3 in 4 of the remainder by the things done at the railway, you're preventing 15 out of 16.

On the railways I Think a little bit of common sense should prevail.

Totally - but analysis is undertaken and perhaps extra work to work out what WOULD make a difference.  Not on my main laptop here so I'll leave looking at the individual comments until I've got more screen space at home.

Thankyou graham, a good post.

But as I said above a signaller apparently caused the one I was told about here in Gloucester, by not using the available lines, we have. This was from platform staff. But NR^» (Network Rail - home page) proposing to spend lots of money on, what sounds like a lot of silly measures, I think is not the answer. We also get no warning from the cis system at Gloucester like they do at Cheltenham, STAND CLEAR!!!, FROM THE PLATFORM EDGE, THE NEXT TRAIN DOES NOT STOP HERE, Also displays on cis screens, Gloucester receives no message as trains have alternative lines, I suppose.

[Celestial]

I think they need to tackle the problem of why people commit suicide in the first place, Mainly it is caused by homelessness according to a bbc 1 news report I saw before Christmas, And on there it said that the government was proposing to end it by 2027. Everybody will get a home. It said councils must do more.

On the railways I Think a little bit of common sense should prevail.

1. Make sure all through trains to platforms have red signals at the end, where there are staff.
2. Platform starting signals have to be cleared by pressing a TRTS^▸ (Train Ready To Start. A plunger/switch pressed by platform dispatch staff that informs the signaller that a train is ready to depart.) button as at BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI)) already. And not press the button until they are sure there is nobody on end of platform
3. All freight trains use the middle lines at stations where possible.
4. At Swindon I have noticed on Opentraintimes that ARS^▸ (Automatic Route Setting) is doing this with freights coming from London, by routing around plat 4.
5. At gloucester freights come through plats 1 and 2 at speed which is dangerous, But can use middle road, but is due to idiotic signallers.

A Suicide there about 4 years ago was encouraged by this, a boy went to the end of plat 2.as freight thundered past.
At a lot of stations, freights do go through middle roads but I have not heard of any deaths at these stations.
And at stations, like Cheltenham, Could a speed restriction be imposed where freights run though two line stations.
I think some of these measures should help. And many are available without spending money, Just station precedures
needing an update.

I know at Gloucester where I am, is after the one noted above that they put Samaritan signs on lamp-posts, seems to have reduced them.

I'm not sure I understand your point 1 - do you mean that whenever there is a station with staff, non-stopping trains have to slow for a red signal as they pass through?

Also, I'm sure signallers are not idiotic, else they would not be in a job for very long. I expect there are many reasons why they do things which are not obvious to someone standing on the platform.  In the example you give, either the rules say its ok for freights to be routed through the platforms or it isn't. I guess it probably is ok so why would they be idiots to do so?

[Bmblbzzz]

I think they need to tackle the problem of why people commit suicide in the first place,

Totally and definitely.

I don't know what proportion of all suicides or attempted suicides take place on railways but clearly jumping in front of a train is only one way among hundreds of ways of killing yourself. Redesigning stations is all well and good but it's the rest of life that's the problem.

[Dispatch Box]

I'm not sure I understand your point 1 - do you mean that whenever there is a station with staff, non-stopping trains have to slow for a red signal as they pass through?

Also, I'm sure signallers are not idiotic, else they would not be in a job for very long. I expect there are many reasons why they do things which are not obvious to someone standing on the platform.  In the example you give, either the rules say its ok for freights to be routed through the platforms or it isn't. I guess it probably is ok so why would they be idiots to do so?
[/quote]

I was more referring to the situation at Gloucester where this one incident happened, The signalman got the blame for it by station staff at the time, So I was told.

Freights or trains not stopping would still have signals green. I have noticed in reading they always seem to route freights through platform 15, I put item 1, in the hope it would help to make stations much safer without the need to spend loads of money.


Where there are two tracks they have no choice, But where there are 4 tracks, as in Newport Cardiff Oxford Swindon are examples the main lines are through the middle, but Gloucester there are 4 tracks, but the signalmen route them on the wrong pair all the time now, My father once worked in Gloucester panel under British Rail and the rule was freights used the two middle ones and were always routed on them, The up relief line through Gloucester still has old jointed track and wooden sleepers and looks a mess, Why this was never relaid to match the other two, I don't know, it is just silly.

[Electric train]

From The Independent

Train stations across the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) are set to be radically redesigned in a bid to cut the number of suicides, according to plans being drafted by Network Rail.

Tube-style platform-edge doors, new lighting, seating that faces away from the tracks and additional barriers will form part of a new blueprint to reduce the number of people taking their lives at stations.

Other proposals being looked at include infra-red beams to alert station staff to people near the end of the platform, flashing stud floor lighting and painted crosshatching to discourage those considering taking their own life from waiting in isolated parts of the station.

Waiting rooms or toilets halfway along platforms would also go under guidance requiring clear sight lines for railway staff along the entire length of the station.

The blueprint, to be published in April, will initially be advisory but could become mandatory if changes to stations are not made.

[continues]

Some things are just impractical. for instance PED (Platform Edge Doors) were seriously looked at by Thameslink as part of the 24 tph the decision not to fit PED was Farringdon Stn the double reverse curve meant it was not feasible like wise at City Thameslink the platforms whist straight are not level (there is a dip)

A number of measures have already been adopted, hatched lines, the gating off of platforms not regularly used staff at manned stations being more vigilent.


Of course many of the other measure like the placing of waiting room and toilet doors only become cost effective when a new station is built or a major revamp, and the observant may alreay have notice this has been practice for many years.

I feel there is some DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) spin here as part of the deflecting tactics of the fare increases