Neil Williams wrote:

Rather than stand around in it I headed to platform 11 to board what
claimed to be the 1724 Silverlink service, on which I sat listening
to various announcements (sensibly sending some IC passengers to
alternative services) for a while.

About an hour later, an announcement was made that platforms 8-11
would be closed and that people should return to the concourse. This
was said to be due to dangerous overcrowding, which was not evident
from where I was sitting.

There are surely plenty of real contingencies that are not self-evident
from certain viewpoints.

A further 15 minutes later, a member of staff came through the train
chucking everyone off (fairly rudely), and the unit was locked OOU.

Ah, so you had not followed the instructions. Good job it wasn't a fire.

It didn't, however, go anywhere.

Presumably because it couldn't.

If, as you say, nothing was moving, then I imagine that when, on the
concourse, the first train out is announced, there would be a mad rush
for it (commuters being leopard-like). TPTB at least can carry out some
sensible flow control if they know that the train they are allowing
people to go to is empty. If, OTOH, the train has an indeterminate
number of people aboard already, then how could they know how many
people it would be safe to allow through? (Oh yes, I know, get someone
to count them! But presumably they would reason that once things start
to move they wouldn't want to be wasting time doing things like that
when there is a much more simple way of determining the answer , as in
removing everyone from the train and telling them to vacate the
platform.)



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(50 010 at Leamington Spa, Oct 1987)