"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