In article , Tom
Anderson writes
Also, i'm not sure what was happening with trains further back than
Lancaster Gate, but it seems to me that it would have made sense to
bring the last train in the queue back to the station as soon as the
problem was detected.

Reversing a train isn't trivial. Apart from the issue of the driver
having to walk through a crowded train, you lose signal protection
because the line isn't set up for bidirectional working. So you need to
*ensure* that the next train isn't going to move even if it gets a green
signal.

In the case of the Central, reversing also means driving in Restricted
Manual, because there are no codes for that direction. Stopping the next
train is also harder, because there may be no signal between it and the
station.

Overall, it could easily take 15 to 20 minutes to get a train reversed
to the previous station.

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