Chiltern failure to tell passengers which platform.

[Daz28]

The difference between New Street and Marylebone is quite obvious, New Street has I believe 14 platforms and Marylebone has 6. The line speed into New Street is 10mph and the line speed into Marylebone is technically 25mph although trains will be doing 15mph into the platform.

Safety is always a relative measure and not an absolute.

Sure, your suggestion would remove the small risk of a crowded platform and people falling onto the line in front of the train. But it introduces the additional risk of people being crushed as a whole train full of passengers head for the barriers.

Charing Cross is a six platform terminus, just like Marylebone, but nearly three times busier. The standard turnaround time is just six minutes and any delay will erode this further. The main difference is that trains are never stacked in platforms at Charing Cross, it is strictly one in, one out. It is absolutely normal for trains to be announced before they have arrived, and it is usual for there to be a crowd two or three deep waiting to get on as passengers are disembarking. Apart from the usual problem of rude people not letting everyone off before climbing on board, I haven't observed any safety issues. There don't appear to be a long list of RAIB reports where overcrowding has caused accidents. Have RAIB ever recommended trains not be announced before they have arrived?

Life is one big set of risks. We need to keep perspective and not relentlessly try and eliminate every single one, otherwise we all end up paying the price.

 

[Tibbs]

It does amaze me at the moment on these forums the number of threads where someone asks a question or makes a point and a member of staff 'in the know' gives a FACTUAL response based on experience and knowledge (not an enthusiast with access to google) and then gets shouted down for it by other people who decide they don't like the answer/response.

More and more threads are going this way it seems.

Unfortunately in order for facts & knowledge to be taken seriously there needs to links to said facts and knowledge.

A 2 minute perusal of any of RJ's threads shows how seriously one should take people who cite 'experience' or '20 years in the railways' as reasons for their opinions to be taken as gospel.

So come on then - the null hypothesis is that standing on the platform of a terminating station is not dangerous.

Provide evidence that it is. I'd imagine the best place to start would be numbers of people killed and/or injured by trains at terminating stations. Those statistics should be easy to find.

 

[TDK]

Provide evidence that it is. I'd imagine the best place to start would be numbers of people killed and/or injured by trains at terminating stations. Those statistics should be easy to find.

They are easy to find and based on the current method used for announcing trains, you have no figures to compare as it is not common practice to announce trains prior to arrival in most incidences

 

[Goatboy]

They are easy to find and based on the current method used for announcing trains, you have no figures to compare as it is not common practice to announce trains prior to arrival in most incidences

Except it is - there is an example given of a very busy terminal station where exactly this happens thousands of times a week just two posts above yours.

You've still not explained why you think people will die if they are standing on a platform before a train arrives.

 

[TDK]

Life is one big set of risks. We need to keep perspective and not relentlessly try and eliminate every single one, otherwise we all end up paying the price.

If there is a risk and it can be reduced surely this should happen however small the risk. If you want to base this as a cost analysis the cost is minimal.

 

[Pumbaa]

They are easy to find and based on the current method used for announcing trains, you have no figures to compare as it is not common practice to announce trains prior to arrival in most incidences

I am struggling to think of stations where this is the case. In my experience, nearly every main station, terminal or otherwise, announces before arrival.

 

[Goatboy]

If there is a risk and it can be reduced surely this should happen however small the risk.

Absolutely not - this is not how risk assessment generally works. Otherwise you'd find nothing would ever happen.

An extreme example to illustrate a point - travelling by train at all is a risk. It can be reduced by not allowing people to travel by train.

 

[IanD]

If there is a risk and it can be reduced surely this should happen however small the risk. If you want to base this as a cost analysis the cost is minimal.

You're still missing the point that, at Marylebone, the trains are generally sitting in the platform for at least 10 minutes before they are announced. That was the was the OPs original complaint but you and A-Driver have changed this to some argument about trains not being announced before they arrive. And we have yet to hear/see any evidence that the practice of very late announcing of stationary trains is safer than the methods used at similar terminus stations.

 

[Daz28]

If there is a risk and it can be reduced surely this should happen however small the risk. If you want to base this as a cost analysis the cost is minimal.

The cost here is the inconvenience of the passengers who are stuck waiting on the crowded concourse instead of being on the platform where the train will arrive. The cost is the delays caused by a train full of passengers not having enough time to board. The cost at Marylebone were the people who were left behind.

There are many risks that on the roads we would not dream of spending effort trying to reduce, but for some reason there is a mentality that railways should always be perfectly safe.

 

[michael769]

They are easy to find and based on the current method used for announcing trains, you have no figures to compare as it is not common practice to announce trains prior to arrival in most incidences

But it is still done at some stations, i refer back to the example of Edinburgh Waverley, and as far as I am aware there have been no fatalities or injuries as a result.

Waverly used to be terrible for this until Transport Scotland put grew a backbone and put a stop to it.

I put it to you that the safety argument is being used as a spurious excuse to cover what is nothing more than poor customer service and the industry putting its convenience and poor performance in front of the needs of its paying customers, and challenge you to produce documented evidence to substantiate your claim that there is a safety issue here.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

At Edinburgh there may not be enough turn around time, and so again its not practical to announce it later.

While that may be true for my evening train with it's 5 min turnaround, my morning train has a good 15 min turnaround but is also apparently announced before arrival given the numbers waiting on the platform.

Indeed announcing early is the norm at Waverley indeed right now according to Network Rails live feed all but 2 services in the next 75 minutes have their platforms announced: http://www.networkrail.co.uk/m/edinburgh_waverley/departures/#bmb=1

 

[pinguini]

At Birmingham New Street the Virgin Trains from London Euston will in most cases (apart from those continuing to Wolverhampton) terminate and then depart back off to London again shortly after. No difference there than at a terminal station such as Marylebone.

The platforms for the Euston departure are advertised far enough in advance for passengers to wait before the arrival of the terminating service. Have you ever been on Platform 1 at New Street when such an event happens? It is mad. It has taken me the best part of quarter of an hour to reach the concourse after arriving because of the overcrowding from both the arriving passengers and those on the platform waiting to join the service as it head back towards Euston.

It is dangerous yes, but I think Goatboy has a valid point.

 

[grid56126]

I assume that the answer is staring us all in the face. It has been mentioned that there is only one member of staff on duty able to deal with trains at Marylebone at this time of night. No amount of prevarication is going to change our views because the "safety" line will be quoted ad infinitum and I suspect (I am guessing but consider it's educated) that the reason it's been like this for so long is quite simply that the senior management and bean counters will not budge on staff numbers, It astounds me that London terminal stations have such small staff numbers on duty at this time. You do have to look hard to see the issue as it is very well hidden by other staff. Sounds crazy I know, but look at any Major station in London late at night and you will see the cleaner, you will see the security bloke, you will see the odd driver / conductor. Look a bit harder and you might find a member of TOC staff who can do despatch/splits & Joins, communicate with CONtrol (etc. etc.).

This has been an emotive subject for years (with apologies to those who find experience a bore) amongst staff at all levels, not least those displaced and made redundant once the TOCs needed to show a return for their shareholders.

Unfortunately not enough middle managers & senior managers travel late at night to see the issues and the planners have to get the stock into depots as assets are burned so tight, hence the need to split down longer trains in the first place rather than just send them back long eliminating the issues here as well as the overcrowding issues not specifically raised in the thread.

To sum up we now have the safety taliban stating a train can be late or leave without passengers in the name of safety after stating that removing staff is not a safety issue.

Grid

 

[barrykas]

Just to go back to the beginning again, remember the situation the OP originally described arose because the 2245 and 2248 departures from Marylebone were on the same platform (the 2242, it transpires, was on platform 3).

The night turn dispatcher has no way of controlling the departure boards at platform level, so the 2248 was automatically removed from the screens at 2246, as per the CIS configuration.

The train was "undeleted" and advertised as soon as the dispatcher was in a position to do so, and eventually departed 3 minutes late.

 

[aleph_0]

As a lay person, it seems to me it's about balancing/minimizing competing risks. At a terminal platform, there is generally 1 exit at the buffer stops. Having people trying to enter the platform, or standing on a platform whilst a full train is emptying is obviously sub-optimal. If a train has a reasonable turnaround, it's helpful for everyone if all if the arriving passengers disperse first. At other places (e.g. New Street), the bigger constraint might be capacity on stairs too/from platforms, and so it's safer to have passengers waiting on platforms. It's also possible such risks are mitigated by other measures (e.g. lower approach speeds)

If the turnaround is tighter at a terminal platform, it might also make sense to display the platform before the train arrives.

It sounds as if there might be a bit of a problem at Marylebone where the idealised assumptions programmed into the PIS cause problems. Similarly, at Edinburgh, early announcements are sometimes needed, and so have been made the default. I'd suggest there is also a longer walk between platforms at Edinburgh, and whilst a seasoned traveller will know which trains leave from which platform groups, this can't be assumed, so I guess the advantages of early announcement outweigh the downsides.

 

[sheff1]

That is against the suggested working agreement

I am intrigued. The working agreement between whom and whom ?

 

[455driver]

It does amaze me at the moment on these forums the number of threads where someone asks a question or makes a point and a member of staff 'in the know' gives a FACTUAL response based on experience and knowledge (not an enthusiast with access to google) and then gets shouted down for it by other people who decide they don't like the answer/response.

More and more threads are going this way it seems.

Hence why I have just about stopped posting, there are a few threads recently where I have posted factual information answering peoples questions and within 5 posts other people have asked the same question that I have just answered again.

 

[transmanche]

Hence why I have just about stopped posting, there are a few threads recently where I have posted factual information answering peoples questions and within 5 posts other people have asked the same question that I have just answered again.

Well I've had that happen to me a number of times... and I'm not railway staff.

My personal view is that whilst working for the railway in a specific role gives you the status of expert, it doesn't give a monopoly of knowledge. That probably sounds harsher than I mean, so I'll explain.

You can't always expect the 'interested layman' to just accept what the expert says. Many times that I've seen people take exception on here, it's really that they're being asked to explain why. E.g. if an action is deemed to be dangerous at station X, but happens frequently at station X - then the 'interested layman' isn't necessarily going to accept that the action is inherently dangerous - unless someone explains why.

And of course' received wisdom' isn't always right - sometimes it deserves to be challenged. Fresh eyes can offer a different perspective.

So if an 'interested layman' challenges a staff member, it doesn't mean that they're disrespecting them or disregarding everything they say. It's simply that they wanting to understand why and wanting to test the 'received wisdom'.

 

[corfield]

This topic seems to have wandered slightly off course but hey ho.

To reiterate, this was about trains that are already in the platform, and have been for some time.

Having said that, I personally cant see any significant risk from people being on a platform prior to the train arrving - indeed, it can only be at a few terminus stations it isnt the case since at virtually every other station the platform is obvious and the only place to wait is on it. Millions of people seem to manage every day on these stations, even during very crowded peak times with large numbers embarking/departing at specific places,not to mention LU stations, so this safety argument appears very spurious.

Thanks for Chiltern complaints info - the email address I used was [email protected], which I extracted from their app.

Thanks barrykas for that info about what happened - by then it was too late as the crowd had largely left the concourse and couldnt see the screen, not to mention Chilterns incompetence at permitting this to happen still stands. Even with 3 min delay, at best that gives people, already in a state of confusion, 4-4.5 mins to get on the train - assuming they wouldnt think it was already too late (not knowing it would wait 3 mins and the train being undeleted at perhaps 22:47:30 ish).

A single station PA would have avoided and countered the vast majority of any confusion and a delayed departure - rather than permitting a predictable situation to develop and playing with the CIS after the horse had bolted so to speak.

As I said, this is the worst of several cases where the platform has been given so late it affects people getting the train.

It isnt acceptable and is entirely avoidable with even a small amount of planning and communication.

It would be nice if the stress and impact on those with lesser mobility of this lastminute.com approach were recognised and people stopped being mucked around for convenience or spurious safety arguments.

It didnt use to be the case at Marylebone (in my experience) so it seems to be a change.