"The Gardener" wrote

My thoughts about such a contingency plan would be something like:

FGW and NR to have sufficient on-call staff available.

Realistically, how long would it take 'on-call staff' to be called in,
travel to Paddington, and be briefed? Even with an efficient 'call' system,
it has to be implemented, when the first priority for Control will be to
deal with those aspects of the incident that are their responsibility, then
to advise stations and train crew (either directly or via signallers) what
is happening so that they can brief passengers already on trains, and
arrange as far as possible for trains to be held at platforms. Bringing in
'on-call staff' probably can't commence in teh first 20 minutes of an
incident. Who would brief them - do you want the duty station manager to be
called away for lengthy periods as the 'on-call staff' turn up?

In this sort of situation you'll never get enough staff to advise people
with the information that's on screens or in tannoy announcements anyway.
Admittedly the quantity and quality of on screen and tannoy information is
not what it could be, particularly in reassuring passengers, and advising
them when and where they can expect more detailed information. It's no use
Paddington trying to give detailed information about onward connections when
they don't know how long the disruption will last. But when passengers get
on the move they should be able to tell the conductor their ultimate
destination and expect onward travel arrangements to be made and advised to
them.

Peter

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 13:44:05 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 14:22:31 +0100
Chris Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:
They may not even understand the language. How on earth do you suppose

They could always try learning it. Just a thought...

A bit hard when your husband has effective control on your activities.

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 10:04:39 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 01:26:43 -0700 (PDT)
Chris wrote:
Body parts could be spread across all six tracks if a person is hit at
125mph.....it could also be a crime scene and the line would have been
closed by the BTP until they are satisfied with their investigations.

Thats the trouble with the police in this country - every accident is a crime
scene until proven otherwise no matter how trivial or how much distruption it
causes. In europe you need a bloody good reason to close an entire motorway or
main rail line for hours but in this country it just needs one jobsworth
plod and thats it for the day. In spain last year I drove past 2 trucks that
had collided head on. In this country plod would have closed the entire
stretch of road for a day - in spain the police were just waving drivers
past as they got on with their job.

Maybe the police knew enough of the facts (unlike yourself) to know
that no evidence external to the vehicles had to be gathered ?

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 14:42:54 +0100
"Peter Masson" wrote:
Meanwhile the northbound M11 was closed for 15 hours after an accident.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-12968479
I don't know how long it took to release vehicles trapped behind the
accident. No doubt many passengers missed planes at Stansted.

Apart from the inconvenience, lost business, pollution and a host of
other problems it causes, thats a number of police tied up for 15 hours,
and
for what? So they can apportion blame, thats what. They're so desperate
to nick somebody they engage in this farcical behaviour. Its time the
home office stepped in and gave the chief constables a good slapping.


Uh, no. It's the Home Office who want the figures to show that someone has
been blamed for each incident.
By the way you tell it you'd be happy to ignore any chance of preventing
this happening again and let any possible guilty parties get away free. In
that case, why bother having police at all?

I do agree that 15 hours is rather long for a RTA investigation but I'm not
sure that many people were delayed for the airport. The crash happened
heading north away from Stansted Airport. The southbound carriageway was
blocked for a while (by debris) but a path was cleared before long. In the
meantime I did hear that cars were permitted (directed, even) to turn around
and head back to the previous junction in either direction. Diversion routes
were put in place.

In article ,
Chris wrote:
TOCs have to get you to your destination if you arrive in
good time for a train that would have taken you there...so there's NO
risk of getting dumped overnight *providing* you don't wander away
from the station for too long - you might miss the only train to go to
where you want to be. REfreshments withinn the station are fine.

Interesting. I knew that the railway would assist if you miss the
last connection or, indeed, if there is a very long wait before the
next connection (is the cutoff 2 hours or some such).

But if your train fails to actually depart from the station you are
ticketed to travel from, are you saying the same applies? That's
useful information if so - I'd somehow always thought that in that
case all you were entitled to was a refund. Maybe the refund case
only applies to delays (where it's your choice whether to wait, or to
choose not to travel) but cancelled last trains are subject to
different arrangements?

-roy

On 5 Apr, 14:48, wrote:
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 14:42:54 +0100

"Peter Masson" wrote:
Meanwhile the northbound M11 was closed for 15 hours after an accident.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-12968479
I don't know how long it took to release vehicles trapped behind the
accident. No doubt many passengers missed planes at Stansted.

Apart from the inconvenience, lost business, pollution and a host of
other problems it causes, thats a number of police tied up for 15 hours, and
for what? So they can apportion blame, thats what. They're so desperate
to nick somebody they engage in this farcical behaviour. Its time the
home office stepped in and gave the chief constables a good slapping.

B2003

Actually, it was people complaining about the unfair difference
between the way in which the police and H&S reacted after railway
crashes (a long and painstaking investigation) and after road crashes
(a quick sweep up of the wreckage and reopen the road) that has led to
road crashes being investigated much more thoroughly. It is not
unknown for one person to kill another under the guise of an RTC -
just such a case is going on in Glasgow at this moment.

On 5 Apr, 19:51, The Gardener wrote:
On Apr 5, 12:08*pm, TonySK14 wrote:



It seems to me like the OP states, that there does just to seem to be
any contingency plan for what is, unfortunatly, a regular event.

When I was an old fashioned guard at Manchester Piccadilly in the
early 80's the contingency manual for a blockage of all four lines
south of Rugby was like the Encyclopedia Brittanica and everybody new
what to do when depending on exact circumstances.

Also if all the managers and high grade supervisors had gone home then
a van was sent round to bring them all back again.

But then of course, those were the days when, if such an occurance
happened Piccadilly - Euston trains simply had a diesel hung on the
front and off they went vis the Dore curve and Derby to St Pancras.

Plus ca change (sorry I don't know how to do accents)

As others have said, it is the case that TOCs will honour each others'
tickets in such cases, but that's no use if someone doesn't say so.
Also, and with good reason, people don't necessarily trust such
announcements. There are too many stories repeated in the media where
people are told by the staff at one station, who work for TOC A, that
they can travel on TOC B's train from somewhere else in the event of
disruption, only to find that TOC B's staff deny all knowledge of this
and in the worst case, impose PFs.

My thoughts about such a contingency plan would be something like:

FGW and NR to have sufficient on-call staff available.
Frequent announcements to say that "we do not know the expected delay
but that train services are not expected to resume before a certain
time", so that people can leave the premises with confidence, and that
if such an announcement is made, to ensure that if the lines reopen
earlier, no last trains to any destination depart before the
previously-stated time.
Some form of texting system and emergency number, so that in the event
of such an incident, you can text, say, "Reading" to it and it will
update you, when the system has information, as to when the next train
to Reading is expected to depart.
FGW staff reps to go to Waterloo and Marylebone (both main line and
Underground stations) so that they can liaise with SWT and Chiltern's
staff on the spot about accepting tickets and to be a reassuring face
at an unfamiliar location.
FGW and NR reps at Paddington to have timetable info available about
alternative Chiltern or SWT services, or indeed the Oxford Tube coach
service.
FGW to arrange for taxis for passengers who cannot use the
Underground, eg MIPs.
FGW to run a DMU shuttle service to somewhere like High Wycombe to
allow pax to Oxford to travel that way using Chiltern services. The
works over Christmas showed that it is possible to run 2 tph between
Paddington and Banbury over the single line sections via Greenford.
Ideally, an FGW rep could be at High Wycombe to arrange shared taxis
for passengers wanting (for example) Reading.

Last but not least, there should be someone on the spot who has the
authority to make decisions. I recall an incident some years ago on
the ECML, when passengers were being directed to go via the MML to
Luton Airport Parkway and that buses had been laid on to Stevenage and
Hitchin. This was after FCC had taken over, so at least there were no
problems about ticket acceptance! Unfortunately, by the time I got to
LAP, the ECML had just been cleared and someone from "on high" had
ordered the buses to be stood down, although there were still about
40-50 pax at LAP wanting Hitchin. There was no-one at LAP who had the
authority to countermand the order from "on high" and we had the
farcical situation of a bus filled with pax wanting Hitchin, a driver
who wanted to take them there but no-one in authority to say so. It
was about 1830 and the station supervisor could not get through to
anyone as TPTB had all gone home! Eventually, the supervisor took it
on his head to instruct the driver to go to Hitchin, but I never heard
what happened next. I had wanted to write to FCC to compliment them on
the initiative of their employee at LAP but I was afraid that I might
drop him in it if they decided to accuse him of exceeding his
authority.

I wonder how well you would do if faced with just such a situation on
the ground.

You say that it's no use another TOC honouring your tickets if you
don't tell people, but then you say that no-one trusts an announcement
anyway.

FGW and NR to have sufficient on-call staff available:
Sadly most rail staff cannot afford to live in the centre of London so
they'd have to be called back in, presumably using the trains that are
not able to run! And all that will do is to ensure chaos the following
day when safety critical staff are not able to work because they've
exceeded their permitted hours.

Frequent announcements to say that "we do not know the expected delay
but that train services are not expected to resume before a certain
time", so that people can leave the premises with confidence

But that's just the point as explained above - only BTP can say when
the line is likely to reopen. They try to do so as quickly as possible
but often they don't know when that will be until immediately before
it happens. If the victim's head is missing you have to keep on
looking until it's found. Station staff would just be guessing if they
tried to give you a time and then you'd accuse them of deceiving you.

In the meantime, people cannot leave the station "with confidence". It
is almost always quicker to wait until services resume than set off on
some alternative route, whether by rail or road. I remember after the
July 7 bombings, a much worse situation than that described here, when
I wanted to get back to Norwich. There were no trains out of Liverpool
Street so I decided to set off from Fenchurch Street via Upminster and
Romford. I arrived at Shenfield just in time to catch the first train
out of Liverpool Street. Your tale about your experience on the ECML
backs that up.

And the idea that FGW would have enough drivers just sitting around at
Paddington who happen to have route knowledge to High Wycombe and
sufficient hours available to get there and back is just pure
fantasy.

The problem is that these incidents happen and there are often no
instant answers to the questions that some people insist must be
answered immediately. The real answer is "be patient and wait. You are
better off waiting here than dashing off round the country. We will
get you home as soon as we can." but very few people want to hear
that.

On 5 Apr, 20:49, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 13:44:05 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 14:22:31 +0100
Chris *Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:
They may not even understand the language. How on earth do you suppose

They could always try learning it. Just a thought...

A bit hard when your husband has effective control on your activities.

Don't be too hard on him. He's probably only 13 years old and doesn't
know any better (or a Daily Mail reader and ditto), and he never has
problems like this on his Hornby train set.

On 5 Apr, 15:55, Neil Williams wrote:

Staff at the station are not dealing with the deceased, that's the
BTP's job. *Staff at the station are dealing with severe disruption,
the reason for which is in many ways irrelevant.


An FGW manager from Paddington might well have had to go to Southall
to deal with matters there and that would involve dealing with the
deceased. Let's not pussyfoot around here. We're not just talking
about BTP going along and picking up a fairly intact body. When
someone gets hit by a train at speed - 60mph is quite enough, let
alone 125, the body totally disintegrates. I never had to deal with
such a situation during my railway career, for which I will be
eternally grateful, but colleagues had to (one had to deal with three
fatalities in little over a month) and very often that involved
getting in the fire brigade to hose down the station before it could
be reopened.

On Apr 5, 2:48*pm, wrote:
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 14:42:54 +0100

"Peter Masson" wrote:
Meanwhile the northbound M11 was closed for 15 hours after an accident.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-12968479
I don't know how long it took to release vehicles trapped behind the
accident. No doubt many passengers missed planes at Stansted.

Apart from the inconvenience, lost business, pollution and a host of
other problems it causes, thats a number of police tied up for 15 hours, and
for what? So they can apportion blame, thats what. They're so desperate
to nick somebody they engage in this farcical behaviour. Its time the
home office stepped in and gave the chief constables a good slapping.

B2003

Yeah right, I take it you are an expert in removing heavy vehicles,
repairing damaged road surfaces, clearing hazardous residue and
freeing casualties? No? Thought not. When someone is killed or
seriously injured in such an incident it is treated as a crime scene
because that is exactly what it is. Killing a person with a vehicle is
just the same as killing someone with a knife or a gun. The difference
is the crime scene is usually larger and can stretch back along the
route. As for the Spanish practice mentioned earlier, there was a
fatal accident on the A30 near Murcia last week. All traffic stopped
one way for 9 hours while the Police did the forensics and the
vehicles were then cleared. No different. People died, and a criminal
investigation is the result. I assume if it was you or a relative of
yours you would prefer the scene to be pushed to one side to avoid
delaying the traffic?
As I understand it last night there were various emergency personnel
shuttling across the tracks to try and save the life of the person
struck by the train.