Whilst doing volunteer work for LU at Hammersmith station, the DM came
down and showed us his pager, which showed that due to an Incident with
a passenger, Armed Police had to visit the station, causing the
District to be suspended Tower Hill - Plaistow and the Central to be
suspended as well (Later on changed to all trains running but not
stopping at Mile End). ANyone know what went on?

Joe wrote:
Whilst doing volunteer work for LU at Hammersmith station, the DM
came down and showed us his pager, which showed that due to an
Incident with a passenger, Armed Police had to visit the station,
causing the District to be suspended Tower Hill - Plaistow and the
Central to be suspended as well (Later on changed to all trains
running but not stopping at Mile End). ANyone know what went on?

According to the BBC:

1115: Police respond to a security alert at Mile End station, where one
eyewitness reports a smell of burning.

1130: Mile End station is reopened as Scotland Yard explain the incident
was "nothing".

By the way, what sort of volunteer work are you doing for LU? Is this
their response to Bob Crow's demand for more staff on stations?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"Richard J." wrote in message
. uk...
Joe wrote:
Whilst doing volunteer work for LU at Hammersmith station, the DM
came down and showed us his pager, which showed that due to an
Incident with a passenger, Armed Police had to visit the station,
causing the District to be suspended Tower Hill - Plaistow and the
Central to be suspended as well (Later on changed to all trains
running but not stopping at Mile End). ANyone know what went on?

According to the BBC:

1115: Police respond to a security alert at Mile End station, where one
eyewitness reports a smell of burning.

1130: Mile End station is reopened as Scotland Yard explain the incident
was "nothing".

I'm intrigued at the vague description of the incident being "nothing". If
there was a smell of burning, there was a cause. I wonder why Scotland Yard
or London Transport didn't say what the cause actually was. Am I right to be
suspicious of vagueness like this?

By the way, what sort of volunteer work are you doing for LU? Is this
their response to Bob Crow's demand for more staff on stations?

You might have seen the posters around the tube with bullet points on
them. One of those is "additonal staff volunteers." My Mum works in the
TfL offices at 55 Broadway and they sent an eMail round a few weeks
back asking if anyone could put their name onto a list to provide help
where needed, so she put her name on it and I just turn up with her.
Last week we were outside Kings X, handing out service updates and
giving information on alternative journeys, today we were on the
platforms at Hammersmith giving out information, most of the people
seemed to be people changing to the District. One thing that shocked me
though was the DM said "Outside of the peak we don't normally have
anyone on the platforms, even recently," indeed when we went for lunch
and after we left, there was nobody else on the platforms (the DM only
came down for a short while). This quite surprises me, because there
are people changing here all year round coming from Heathrow, and in
light of line closures it is quite important to make that first
impression and provide good journey information, the number of people I
spoke to who were not English would have had any idea how to get to
their destination. In fact, there was one woman who was struggling with
Luggage, couldnt speak English and needed to get to Sheperds Bush H&C,
and the only way to get her to the bus, would be to go with her,
something the gate staff are willing to want to/be able to do.

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 17:10:21 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

By the way, what sort of volunteer work are you doing for LU? Is this
their response to Bob Crow's demand for more staff on stations?

There is now an almost standard procedure that when there is any sort of
serious incident that disrupts the service that all LU employees are
requested to volunteer. The purpose is to provide additional support to
front line staff to keep the service running (train radio failures) or
help direct people to alternative tube, bus or rail services. Most of
the present requirement is to act to offer reassurance to people using
the system that there are staff around the system as well as travel
information.

I have yet to see Bob Crow's name within a thousand miles of these
requests. My guess is that he would view any volunteer as taking work
away from his current membership. Take a look at what the RMT's demands
are - they are designed to do one thing and that is increase union
membership and thus his ability to control / stop the railway.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

I'm not sure why you are "shocked" about there being no staff on
platforms at off peak times. This is the norm at almost every tube
station with the exceptions of Victoria and those stations on the JLE
where there are platform edge doors. I'm struggling to think of anywhere
else on the system where constant staff presence is required on
platforms solely to provide passenger advice.

Well, maybe "shocked" was a bit of an overstatement, but I did think
that it would be a nice touch to help direct people who seem to be
incapable of reading our signs, which are better than any other Metro
system Ive been on before.

This is also true of Metro systems all over the world that have much
lower staffing levels than LU possesses.

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 20:03:14 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 17:10:21 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

By the way, what sort of volunteer work are you doing for LU? Is this
their response to Bob Crow's demand for more staff on stations?

There is now an almost standard procedure that when there is any sort of
serious incident that disrupts the service that all LU employees are
requested to volunteer. The purpose is to provide additional support to
front line staff to keep the service running (train radio failures) or
help direct people to alternative tube, bus or rail services. Most of
the present requirement is to act to offer reassurance to people using
the system that there are staff around the system as well as travel
information.

I have yet to see Bob Crow's name within a thousand miles of these
requests. My guess is that he would view any volunteer as taking work
away from his current membership. Take a look at what the RMT's demands
are - they are designed to do one thing and that is increase union
membership and thus his ability to control / stop the railway.

Yep the RMT want:

* guards on trains

* more staff on the gatelines.


It can only be a short time before they want additional payment...

Rob.
--
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 21:13:16 +0100, Robert Woolley
wrote:

Yep the RMT want:

* guards on trains

* more staff on the gatelines.


It can only be a short time before they want additional payment...

I think it's fair to say that they currently want additional payment.

It probably won't be long before they disrupt our lives by striking,
though, I'm sure. (Which is, I guess, what you meant )

--
James Farrar

September's coming soon

Joe wrote:

I'm not sure why you are "shocked" about there being no staff on
platforms at off peak times. This is the norm at almost every tube
station with the exceptions of Victoria and those stations on the JLE
where there are platform edge doors. I'm struggling to think of anywhere
else on the system where constant staff presence is required on
platforms solely to provide passenger advice.

Well, maybe "shocked" was a bit of an overstatement, but I did think
that it would be a nice touch to help direct people who seem to be
incapable of reading our signs, which are better than any other Metro
system Ive been on before.


Nice job you do Joe, appreciate it very much.

From Belgium,

Theo

--
From the heath in the Nord of Belgium

This was an unfortunate combination of a report of one of the bomb
suspects being on a WB Central Line train and a motor flashover with
caused smoke to emit from the rear car at the same time.