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Train stuck just outside ManchesterPiccadilly-Mon 10/02

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JN114

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So is it possible to evacuate a train from the mouth of Piccadilly in less than 2 hours in an emergency?

Yes, but not without causing enormous disruption to thousands of other passengers on dozens of other trains in the area - causing them to be equivalently stranded and at greater risk of requiring their own emergency evacuation.

Justifiable when people are in immediate danger.

Not justifiable when they’re in the safest place they can be, in an inconvenient; non-emergency situation.
 
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Llama

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So is it possible to evacuate a train from the mouth of Piccadilly in less than 2 hours in an emergency?
Yes, if you know from 0:00:01 that an evacuation is the only possible option and begin preparing for that. Trains suffer faults all the time, they're very rarely completely disabled to the point where a compatible assisting train is no use to move the failed train though.
 

Bletchleyite

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Yes, if you know from 0:00:01 that an evacuation is the only possible option and begin preparing for that. Trains suffer faults all the time, they're very rarely completely disabled to the point where a compatible assisting train is no use to move the failed train though.

It would strike me that this preparation should occur in parallel to other options, then if the train can't be fixed/moved it can immediately be kicked into action, and if it can it is simply stood down.
 

JN114

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It would strike me that this preparation should occur in parallel to other options, then if the train can't be fixed/moved it can immediately be kicked into action, and if it can it is simply stood down.

It does. You need dozens of response staff from multiple agencies to safely conduct a train to ballast controlled evacuation. It can only be kicked immediately into action once all the players are in place. Once they are, and the tipping point of it being better to evacuate than remain aboard is reached it is conducted immediately. As was the case in this incident.
 

Dr Hoo

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It would strike me that this preparation should occur in parallel to other options, then if the train can't be fixed/moved it can immediately be kicked into action, and if it can it is simply stood down.
Can you flesh out what this 'preparation' might actually mean?

I was 'stranded' at Piccadilly P13/14 for a while during this incident, en route to Meols Cop of all places. Staff there and later at Oxford Road and later still at Wigan Wallgate, let alone in Control and signalling centres were clearly working flat out to manage customer information, crew relief, short turns, skip stopping and so forth as I stood on various chilly platforms very glad that I had my thickest winter coat on. No complaints. It was obviously a major incident and folk seemed to be trying even if every train seemed to have inaudible or indecipherable public address.

It would be a really big ask to expect there to be 'human chains' to Mayfield and contingency plans to 'hold' 45 tph in station platforms across Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire set up alongside these efforts.

These things are really quite rare. For what it's worth I've never been personally involved in a 'transfer' or a trackside evacuation in tens of thousands of personal train journeys nor did I ever have to organise one as a front line operations manager.
 

miami

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Could someone explain why evacuating from the platform 14 line would require doing anything other than blocking the line it's on (already blocked) and the neighbouring line, while passengers are led back to Longsight and out onto New Bank Street? How would it affect the lines through Ardwick say? Or the lines down to Stockport on the other side of the tracks?
 

Bantamzen

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Could someone explain why evacuating from the platform 14 line would require doing anything other than blocking the line it's on (already blocked) and the neighbouring line, while passengers are led back to Longsight and out onto New Bank Street? How would it affect the lines through Ardwick say? Or the lines down to Stockport on the other side of the tracks?

I'm not an industry expert, but having spent many years as a union H&S rep and been involved with numerous evacuations, I'd say its a human factor. You could just close a couple of lines & let the rest of the services run, assuming of course they aren't trapped behind services waiting to use P14. However humans being humans, whenever large numbers of people are asked to move unexpectedly and/or quickly, messages can often be misheard or misunderstood, or even just ignored. So whilst walking potentially a couple of hundred or more people down a single line should be straightforward, it only takes one person to decide to wander off (and others might follow) onto live running lines. So I'd say, and its not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that it is probably sensible to remove as much potential risk as possible. And this is probably one reason why punters aren't just kicked off failed trains after a few minutes.
 

Dr Hoo

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Mobilise the relevant teams as if an emergency evacuation was necessary, and have them standing waiting for the final call.
OK. But my perception was that staff on the platforms and (by inference) in control, signalling centres, working information systems and so on were already very busy. You seem to be envisaging entirely separate/additional teams who could literally be 'standing by', detached from managing and operating the rest of the service.
 

Bletchleyite

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OK. But my perception was that staff on the platforms and (by inference) in control, signalling centres, working information systems and so on were already very busy. You seem to be envisaging entirely separate/additional teams who could literally be 'standing by', detached from managing and operating the rest of the service.

Yes, I am envisaging such teams, in the manner that it has been explained upthread that other railways e.g. SBB already have.
 

Bantamzen

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Yes, I am envisaging such teams, in the manner that it has been explained upthread that other railways e.g. SBB already have.

Is there any particular reason why SBB have these specialist fire fighting trains & crews as you mention? Perhaps that the nature of the Swiss railway nature means that emergencies can be more complicated than a failed unit outside of Piccadilly?

I'm not arguing against it by the way, but there is a good reason why Swiss railways have these particular measures in place. We of course also have specialist firefighting crews located all around the country, they are just not employed by the DfT.
 

miami

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So whilst walking potentially a couple of hundred or more people down a single line should be straightforward, it only takes one person to decide to wander off (and others might follow) onto live running lines

Funny how we manage to shepherd 150 primary school children through the village and across busy roads, with fewer than 15 adults, without them wandering off.

Between BTP and rail staff it shouldn't be a problem.

Could you also explain why it would be impossible to bring an empty train, on the same or neighbouring track, get people down from one train, walk 20 yards along, then climb up onto the other train.

You could have staff practically link hands along the route to stop people wandering off in such a situation.
 

Bantamzen

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Funny how we manage to shepherd 150 primary school children through the village and across busy roads, with fewer than 15 adults, without them wandering off.

Between BTP and rail staff it shouldn't be a problem.

Could you also explain why it would be impossible to bring an empty train, on the same or neighbouring track, get people down from one train, walk 20 yards along, then climb up onto the other train.

You could have staff practically link hands along the route to stop people wandering off in such a situation.

Completely different scenarios, evacuations by their very nature can become chaotic if rushed, especially where people are in unfamiliar circumstances, like say walking along tracks. And you don't have people climbing off one train and onto another, they have to be done using ramps between trains because trains have this habit of having their floors quite high above the ground. But you knew this.

I am glad though that we have all these armchair experts available on RUK to tell those nasty professionals how to do their jobs. Whatever would we do without you all.....
 

Bletchleyite

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And you don't have people climbing off one train and onto another, they have to be done using ramps between trains because trains have this habit of having their floors quite high above the ground.

Actually this is sometimes done using, er, a ladder.

e.g.:

0_DiYwsWyW4AAY44_.jpg

Voyager on fire being evacuated using a ladder
 

Bletchleyite

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Are they transferring to another train there, I believe that was the suggestion made earlier....

No, clearly not, but if you can climb down a ladder you can climb up one. (As a climber, I'm well versed in the fact that downclimbing (to retreat from a route that is too hard, for example) is far harder than climbing up!)
 

Facing Back

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No, clearly not, but if you can climb down a ladder you can climb up one. (As a climber, I'm well versed in the fact that downclimbing (to retreat from a route that is too hard, for example) is far harder than climbing up!)
As somebody who spent 3 months in a hospital bed and suffered significant muscle wastage I must respectfully disagree. I was perfectly capable of stepping down, but if the step was too high I didn't have sufficient strength to step up. would have Going up this ladder would have been impossible for me.
 

miami

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Good for you. People in a wheelchair would be stuck going down a ladder too, so for a tiny number of people there are other options.

I think the argument here is that some people think 2 hours on a crowded commuter train just outside of a major station is acceptable, others think that it is unacceptable, and mechanisms and procedures should be in place to prevent such a situation.

I don't believe anyone is suggesting rail staff come up with something unique to evacuate people - I for one think there should be a process ready to go. That could mean keeping an appropiate gangplank (if a wheelchair ramp isn't appropiate) at major stations (ones where shutting all the tracks down for long enough to walk along to an access point would be operationally inconvienient), and a reasonable hard time-limit (say if the train hasn't moved in 30 minutes, then another train is taken to the site with the gangplank and evacuated that way)
 

Bantamzen

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No, clearly not, but if you can climb down a ladder you can climb up one. (As a climber, I'm well versed in the fact that downclimbing (to retreat from a route that is too hard, for example) is far harder than climbing up!)

So all we need to do is ensure all train passengers are experienced climbers then....

The point in all of this is that there is no hard & fast method to deal with incidents, no neat little list or PowerPoint presentation to follow step by step. Every incident has to be dealt with on it's own merits, every eventuality considered and risk assessed. Most if not all people criticising how this was handled actually do not know what decision making processes took place, and why each decision was made. They have just read a local rag's third hand, Twitter based account and set off on some faux rage rampage. I am sure that evacuation was considered from the outset, but given that the unit was in the throat of a very busy station, where a total shut down would have stranded dozens of trains & thousands of additional passengers, and that there was no imminent danger to the passengers on the unit the decision was made to try all other options first. To me this seems sensible and risked no more than some inconvenience to those passengers on-board. Had a more serious issue developed, those on site and in control would have responded accordingly.

If folk aren't happy with that, all I can suggest is to get your applications into Network Rail for positions that would put you in the decision making loop. Because speaking as someone who was stuck on a train for far longer than this incident, I feel comfortable leaving the decision making to those professionals in charge, and not the RUK home-made experts.

As somebody who spent 3 months in a hospital bed and suffered significant muscle wastage I must respectfully disagree. I was perfectly capable of stepping down, but if the step was too high I didn't have sufficient strength to step up. would have Going up this ladder would have been impossible for me.

My wife is starting to suffer from arthritis, and she is starting to find it harder to climb up than climb down. And she would certainly struggle with those little ladders.
 

miami

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My wife is starting to suffer from arthritis, and she is starting to find it harder to climb up than climb down. And she would certainly struggle with those little ladders.

Then don't get little ladders - have major stations - where the tracks can't be easily blocked - carry steps or ramps that can be used.

The point here is that some people believe the railway puts operational convenience above getting people off trains.
 

Bletchleyite

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The point here is that some people believe the railway puts operational convenience above getting people off trains.

I am certainly one of those people. I also think the railway is too risk-averse[1], which is relevant.

[1] Or rather that railway safety spending is a waste of money as the railway is now so safe that you get diminishing returns and more lives would be saved if that spending stopped and instead came off fares to get more people off the roads.
 

bahnause

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Is there any particular reason why SBB have these specialist fire fighting trains & crews as you mention? Perhaps that the nature of the Swiss railway nature means that emergencies can be more complicated than a failed unit outside of Piccadilly?

There are multiple reasons, one of them (and probably one of the most common ones) is the evacuation and towing of trains. They crews are well trained for multiple scenarios, the worst I could imagine would be a fire in a tunnel. It is an impressive piece of kit they are using:

https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-compa...nt/customers/sbb-and-safety/intervention.html
 

Mathew S

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To be honest your aspirations are totally unrealistic, and frankly would put passengers in way more danger. Just because there are platforms and/or depots within a few hundred metres doesn't mean that you can press a button, have the entire area brought to a standstill and deploy all those railway staff to the failed unit in half an hour. And even if you could, what about the thousands of passengers you've now stranded whilst they wait for the passengers from the failed train get out of the way?? Railway staff have an obligation to all passengers, and not just those on any failed unit. Again, staying on the train whilst staff try every alternative is far safer for those passengers than scrambling across ballast.

I really don't think you've even begun to try and think this through, sorry. I think you are getting angry for all the wrong reasons.
You're spectacularly missing the point. If it's not possible to do what I've outlined now, then very serious questions need to be asked why not, and appropriate resources put in place so that it IS possible in future. I'm as big a railway fanatic as anyone, but the industry response in incidents like this... pathetic isn't a strong enough word.
 

Bantamzen

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You're spectacularly missing the point. If it's not possible to do what I've outlined now, then very serious questions need to be asked why not, and appropriate resources put in place so that it IS possible in future. I'm as big a railway fanatic as anyone, but the industry response in incidents like this... pathetic isn't a strong enough word.

I'm not the one missing the point, being a rail fanatic does not make anyone an expert in incident management.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the people getting bent seriously out of shape about this on here almost certainly have no idea about the decision making flow in situations like this. I have zero faith in any of your understanding, and full faith in those professionals whose job it is to assess and act.
 

Mathew S

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I'm not the one missing the point, being a rail fanatic does not make anyone an expert in incident management.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the people getting bent seriously out of shape about this on here almost certainly have no idea about the decision making flow in situations like this. I have zero faith in any of your understanding, and full faith in those professionals whose job it is to assess and act.
I don't profess to have any understanding at all. What I do have is the reasonable expectation that these incidents are dealt with in an acceptable way. Hiding behind health and safety, paperwork, decision making processes or whatever is utterly and completely irrelevant. It needs to be done better, and faster, than it is now, and that's the end of it. If current processes don't allow that to happen then it's the processes that need to be changed, not passengers expectations.
 

Bantamzen

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I don't profess to have any understanding at all. What I do have is the reasonable expectation that these incidents are dealt with in an acceptable way. Hiding behind health and safety, paperwork, decision making processes or whatever is utterly and completely irrelevant. It needs to be done better, and faster, than it is now, and that's the end of it. If current processes don't allow that to happen then it's the processes that need to be changed, not passengers expectations.

Sorry you lost me at dismissing health and safety on an infrastructure where that is critical. Expectations do not supersede the importance of keeping people safe. If you expect to never be delayed by more than a few minutes no matter what the circumstances, then all I can say is the world has some very bad news for you.
 

miami

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Sorry you lost me at dismissing health and safety on an infrastructure where that is critical.

No he's not, he's saying the "Elf and Safety i'nnit" attitude isn't good enough. That's the view of many people involved in health and safety -- people hide behind it to avoid doing something difficult or expensive.
 

Bantamzen

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No he's not, he's saying the "Elf and Safety i'nnit" attitude isn't good enough. That's the view of many people involved in health and safety -- people hide behind it to avoid doing something difficult or expensive.

This isn't about that, I frankly don't understand what part of this you don't understand. Moving people around trackside is riskier than trying to move people within the train. This is why trackside evacuation must always be the last option, not an instant go-to because a few people are slightly unhappy.

There's really nothing more to add to that.
 
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