I do hate how exaggerated this thing about the "massive" steelwork is. Yes the ones for the tensioning equipment where wire runs start or finish are quite big, but they need to be able to withstand a lot of force. Unfortunately you can end up with several of them near stations where there are many crossovers. But for plain line the normal Series1 twin-track cantilevers look much better than the old Mk3 system (both normal length and extra length ones).

Mk3
Southall: https://flic.kr/p/22t5QDW
Southall again: https://flic.kr/p/MVUWhx

Series1
Pangbourne: https://flic.kr/p/HKLVrK
Pangbourne again: https://flic.kr/p/21BYR51
Maidenhead: https://flic.kr/p/21KWQqy
Iver: https://flic.kr/p/DGs7ff (although one of the massive tensioning ones were just out of shot)

Begs the question whether the inspection regime is still failing.

Should it not be proactive, finding and fixing faults during quiet hours, rather than reactive and shutting a platform through a weekday rush hour?

We all trooped off. The gates were open. No touch outs.

Most of us trooped round to platform 12 where we had to touch in again. Nice little earner for TfL^» (Transport for London - about) - double touch ins and no touch outs = unresolved journeys or maximum penalty fares. What a bunch of crooks TfL are with Oyster^▸ (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services).

It reached 29.1C in St James Park, just shy of the April record of 29.4C. Yes this has been a year so far of exceptional extremes in our weather, and there is every likelihood we will see similar disparities in future years, if not greater. The rail service is obviously going to be susceptible to this, and this needs to be planned for. I don't see any evidence of this happening.

Once the traction current was off there was really no excuse to then keep everybody else on board for several further hours.

Arrived 140 minutes late.  One of the old trains which suffered a complete loss of air.

My suggestion for something that is simple enough that it might happen is this:

• Add a hydraulic pump operated by a handwheel or lever, either in the cab or just behind it (and not requiring anything to be found and attached to make it work)
• Connect this to the hydraulic brake system, either in place of or as well as the existing pump,
• Check the routing of the pipes and hoses for vulnerability, and move or protect as need be.

41 The train is also fitted with a hand brake2
, which is hydraulically operated via a
button on the control desk. However, this is fitted with an interlock to prevent its
use while the train is moving; the hand brake is designed to prevent a stationary
train from moving, not to stop a moving train. Therefore, the driver was unable
to use this desk control after the train had started rolling backwards. There is
a manual pump on the exterior of the cab that the driver can operate to apply
the hand brake, using a handle that is kept in the cab. However, this is slow to
operate and may not be fully able to stop a moving train, and the driver had to
consider the possibility that this was also inoperative. Use of the hand brake
while moving is not a documented or approved procedure, but this was the only
brake that would still have been operable, albeit it was not designed to stop a
moving train.

It seems to me that the design of the vehicles was defective in not being equipped with a manually operated parking brake.
One that is applied by turning a wheel and that does not require compressed air or electricity.

Such brakes often operate on only one axle and therefore have limited stopping power, but would have sufficed in this case.

Good question.  And there is a plenty of evidence from decades of subsequent use that the BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) electrical clearance rules of the 1980s were perfectly safe and that the newer more stringent rules were a mistake. 

There is an article in this weeks Rail Magazine on the proposed Kings Cross remodelling that sheds some light on these costs.  They put it down to slavish adherence to rules (e.g. electrification clearances). An example quoted is the 5 year old footbridge at Kings Cross which would according to the rules need to be replaced again for £10 million because of the clearances. However they did a risk assessment (details in article) which showed that it was not necessary in that location.