"amogles" wrote in message
...
On 5 Apr., 15:32, Chris wrote:
Yes, it is. The real problem is Joe Public's complete lack of patience
these days. Previously, they'd work it out for themselves that the
likely delay is a couple of hours, do I want to try a different route
or shall I wait -

Interesting point.
I wonder, wether the staff at Waterloo would be aware of what was
going on and letting Reading passengers onto the corresponding train
for example? In the past it would have taken one phone call from
Paddington to Waterloo to set that up, but do the railways still think
like that?

Incident happened at 19:10
Up/Down Main opened 19:50
All lines open 20:50

On 05/04/11 17:03, amogles wrote:
On 5 Apr., 15:32, wrote:
Yes, it is. The real problem is Joe Public's complete lack of patience
these days. Previously, they'd work it out for themselves that the
likely delay is a couple of hours, do I want to try a different route
or shall I wait -

Interesting point.
I wonder, wether the staff at Waterloo would be aware of what was
going on and letting Reading passengers onto the corresponding train
for example? In the past it would have taken one phone call from
Paddington to Waterloo to set that up, but do the railways still think
like that?
Non-train specific to/from Reading and beyond are valid at both
Paddington and Waterloo anyway.

On 5 Apr, 17:10, "Pat O'Neill" wrote:
"amogles" wrote in message

... On 5 Apr., 15:32, Chris wrote:
Yes, it is. The real problem is Joe Public's complete lack of patience
these days. Previously, they'd work it out for themselves that the
likely delay is a couple of hours, do I want to try a different route
or shall I wait -

Interesting point.
I wonder, wether the staff at Waterloo would be aware of what was
going on and letting Reading passengers onto the corresponding train
for example? In the past it would have taken one phone call from
Paddington to Waterloo to set that up, but do the railways still think
like that?

Incident happened at 19:10
Up/Down Main opened 19:50
All lines open 20:50

In answer to those yelling about alternative options.....see above.
You'd have either been stiuck in a coach stuck in traffic or waiting
to leave Waterloo if they had announced those alternatives - while if
you'd done NOTHING, chances are you were on a train within 90 minutes
or so.

I know what option I'd have taken. Hanging around.
That's why I suggested the best option is to find out what time the
lines were closed (the info point would have known that) and allowed 2
hours for clearance. Then worked out how much longer the alternatives
were and waited, because you'd be home quicker that way!

On 5 avr, 15:15, "Peter Masson" wrote:
"tony" wrote

What would Gerry Fiennes have done??

Get the Spitalfields Pilot out to drag the failure up the bank to Bethnal
Green
Shunt the truck train for the express (unless Masher May was on the front of
the truck train, it was a Saturday morning, and March Town were playing at
home).
What he wouldn't do is to forget to tell Upminster that the direct line to
Pitsea was blocked by a derailment and everything would have to be diverted
via Ockendon and Tilbury.

Peter

Well, he was an operations superintendant at the period referred to.
His record seems to point to a pragmatic man rather than a **** taker.

"Chris Sanderson" wrote in message
...
One person has lost their life, many others will be affected for
months or possibly even years by the experience...but hey, some people
might get home an hour or two late! Oh no! Thats infinately more
important than making sure that there arent bits of body lying about,
or checking the need to preserve a possible crime scene - just send
trains along the other lines! Oh, and there must be loads of staff to
tell abusive passengers who cant comprehend announcements or displays
that no, they dont know when or if their train will run.

Sorry for being flippant, but it happens. Poor people in poor areas
end their miserable lives. People going home from work get delayed.
Trains are cancelled. Staff get shouted at because they dont have
crystal balls. Its not going to change, so my advice is to go and find
a café, have a sit down and stop being so angry when compared to the
poor unfortunate who died and the poor unfortunate's who have to clear
up the result you have VERY little to complain about.



If it happened once a year you might have a point. Sadly Paddington to
Reading seems to have rather a lot of fatalities, recently there were two in
a day. So it's hardly surprising that regular travellers will get fed up.

I've been lucky having only been affected by two, once on the train and once
stuck at Reading.

John

On 05/04/2011 17:33, none wrote:
On 05/04/11 17:03, amogles wrote:
On 5 Apr., 15:32, wrote:
Yes, it is. The real problem is Joe Public's complete lack of patience
these days. Previously, they'd work it out for themselves that the
likely delay is a couple of hours, do I want to try a different route
or shall I wait -

Interesting point.
I wonder, wether the staff at Waterloo would be aware of what was
going on and letting Reading passengers onto the corresponding train
for example? In the past it would have taken one phone call from
Paddington to Waterloo to set that up, but do the railways still think
like that?
[Non-train specific to/from Reading and beyond are valid at both
Paddington and Waterloo anyway.]

The answer is - yes, they do. In fact the TOCs work together for ticket
acceptance a lot more than is commonly realised. Cross acceptance
between the Waterloo and Paddington routes to Reading is regularly
agreed when there is major disruption. If the blockage is close enough
in that you can by-pass it by "Tube", London Underground might be
involved as well.

Have a look at the National Rail "Service Disruption" page from time to
time and see how often ticket acceptance information is included. You
may be surprised.

But as someone else has pointed out, you need to be satisfied that the
likely delay on the "normal" route is worth making the diversion for.
Otherwise, it could be "out of the frying pan, into the fire". A few
days ago this happened during the incident at Drem on the ECML, where a
train from Aberdeen to London was sent from Edinburgh to Newcastle via
Carlisle and Hexham, thereby ending up following later trains which had
waited for the line to clear.

--
- Yokel -

Yokel posts via a spam-trap account which is not read.

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.

On Apr 5, 2:34*pm, "Peter Masson" wrote:
"SB" wrote in message

... Sadly there was yet another person hit by a train at Southall on
Monday evening (yesterday).

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/co...topic=669.msg8....

This is very sad - but why so many at Southall anyway? It does seem to
be a regular occurance.

Anyway you would have thought that First Great Western might have had
a contingency plan for such occurrences by now.

I suspect they had. BTP's target time for reopening a railway after a
fatality is 2 hours. If you could get a fleet of buses to Paddington to take
all the passengers it would almost certainly take the best part of 2 hours.
So no point. It would also be likely to take nearly as long to call in off
duty managers and staff from home. Again no point.
What should have been done is to keep passengers informed as far as possible
(via tannoy and screens), reassure those with connections down the line to
contact the conductor when they do get away, so that arrangements (hold last
connections, arrange taxis) can be made. Make tickets available on LUL and
SWT and advise passengers for Heathrow that they may travel via LUL and that
passengers may also make their way to Waterloo for Windsor, Reading, via
Basingstoke, etc.
Trains in the station, which would be the first ones out when the line
reopened, should be loaded - so they can be got away quickly when this
becomes possible, and, to the seating capacity of the trains, to give
passengers somewhere warm to sit and wait.
Presumably the Greenford shuttle kept running until end of service, carrying
passengers to Acton Main Line, Ealing Broadway, West Ealing, and the
Greenford branch
If there was a train crew with route knowledge via Banbury after the
Christmas diversions, a train to Bristol or Siouth Wales should have been
diverted via Banbury, calling at Oxford, Swindon and usual stations.
I'll leave it to BAA and the airlines how they cope when passengers arrive
late at Heathrow because BAA's HEx and HConn trains were not running.

Peter

The incident occurred at 19:08, the main lines were re-opened at
19:50, and the relief lines at 20:45.

StuartJ

SB wrote:
Sadly there was yet another person hit by a train at Southall on
Monday evening (yesterday).

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/co...c=669.msg87663

This is very sad - but why so many at Southall anyway? It does seem to
be a regular occurance.


You could probably draw some conclusions as to why by examining the
ethnic and socio-economic mix of the people affected.

tony wrote:
On Apr 5, 12:53*pm, Sailor wrote:

My railway experience of yesteryear was that in general the system was
flexible to the point where trains could be provided at very little
notice. In those days of course, the railway staff *themselves were
very much users of the system as their primary ( and free) means of
daily transport. *Todays railways by their basic organisation is less
able to react at short notice *and has resurrected all the petty
weaknesses of mid 19th century wars of access and running rights!

What would Gerry Fiennes have done??


He would have written a book - or perhaps several - pointing out the
serial weaknesses of his colleagues while praising (to the heavens!)
his own contribution, such as it was.