Crowd Management at Liverpool Lime Street after Parade

[Jim the Jim]

What they're doing is putting safety first. Its a tried and tested plan that works to get people home, and get them there safely. Traincrew were advised their trains would be held until full and then sent, regardless of whether that would delay the service departing.

The plan should come with clear measures to communicate to passengers what is happening. The whole fact that this is a tried and tested plan means there has been plenty of time to sort this out. Other posters have made it obvious this communication didn't happen, and some people even received false information. This isn't acceptable. It's especially unacceptable for people to think they're stranded in the city when someone might be going around trying to kill people.

 

[MalaiseForever]

Which TOC provides the main staff at Lime St these days?

It’s a Network Rail managed station, so I’d expect NR staff form up the bulk of the staff there.

It’s interesting to hear people say trains were leaving empty (or at least not full). The incident logs say trains were being held until full and standing until dispatch.

 

[dk1]

just another reason to completely avoid public transport to and from major sporting events, first with Chiltern not running any services to Wembley Stadium and now this.
Yes, you’ll have to pay more for parking and be stuck in traffick, but at least you’ll be warm and comfortable while you wait.

Can’t drink though and who in their right mind would want to be a designated driver?

 

[Western Sunset]

It’s a Network Rail managed station, so I’d expect NR staff form up the bulk of the staff there.

It’s interesting to hear people say trains were leaving empty (or at least not full). The incident logs say trains were being held until full and standing until dispatch.

How accurate are incident logs? If a poster, above, could get on at Edge Hill, trains were patently not "full and standing"

 

[sjm77]

It’s a Network Rail managed station, so I’d expect NR staff form up the bulk of the staff there.

It’s interesting to hear people say trains were leaving empty (or at least not full). The incident logs say trains were being held until full and standing until dispatch.

Well if the incident logs state that the following departures were held until full and standing then that is blatent fraud;
18:39 Liverpool Lime Street to Blackpool North
19:27 Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria
19:22 Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Oxford Road

I am only commenting on what I actually witnessed and experienced myself. I suspect that other trains were also empty becuase the concourse was empty whilst many other trains departed. I would summise that trains were held in the hope of filling up until TOC control thought "enough is enough, the train needs to be able to start it's following journey on time".

 

[43055]

How accurate are incident logs? If a poster, above, could get on at Edge Hill, trains were patently not "full and standing"

Quick Google comes up with a twitter post with a photo of an empty northern service.

https://x.com/Pelloki/status/1927076212460961929?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Absolutely disgraceful queue system at Liverpool Lime Street. Thousands and thousands dangerously trapped outside with no functional queue system and my train has left almost completely empty because nobody is funneled correctly. Complete failure of planning and management.

 

[dk1]

Depending on the ongoing situation it is not always possible to hold trains indefinitely. Other trains are waiting to get into the station and you are going to have crew members refusing the enforced overtime. It comes to a point where you just have to get rid if the passengers are not being let through.

 

[ScotGG]

I've seen similar before at other events in the country. It's of course sensible to manage crowds outside but in reality so few are/were allowed onto the concourse trains leave empty as chaos builds outside with a lack of communication, crushing at times and frustrated, irate people not allowed into empty stations and trains. It will cause a disaster one day and ironically be down to inept "safety" measures.

 

[lfc84]

i read this on another forum:

They were letting groups of between 50 and 100 in at a time and then stopping access again. People were being made to stand out in the rain for hours while the concourse and platforms were mostly empty. Then when people were allowed in there was very few if any announcements as to which trains were on which platform.
I brought an empty train off Edge Hill depot into Lime st to work to Stafford and on the way in two almost empty trains to Warrington passed me in the tunnels. There was hundreds if not thousands standing out in the rain and they were sending trains out 75% or more empty ! My train manager who is the RMT H&S rep told me she couldn't believe they'd sent us our as she could have got another 300 at least on our train.

 

[Western Sunset]

If incident logs are false, either deliberately or by poor recording, how will lessons be learned about handling future large-scale events?

 

[The exile]

Suggest this is an occasion when people affected should contact their MPs. If enough do it maybe some action will get taken regarding crowd control at predictable major events. That, for a start means having someone senior present with authority to overrule instructions from elsewhere (I don’t mean standard safety rules) and who, on this occasion answers with their job if any train left with space while people were still outside.

 

[lfc84]

one observation I would make about Lime Street is the floor is extremely slippy when it's wet. I guess that would have been a concern last night, in the context of crowd management and limiting the flow rate of people. unfortuantely it sounds like they slowed it too much with trains going out nearly empty

 

[Iskra]

Suggest this is an occasion when people affected should contact their MPs. If enough do it maybe some action will get taken regarding crowd control at predictable major events. That, for a start means having someone senior present with authority to overrule instructions from elsewhere (I don’t mean standard safety rules) and who, on this occasion answers with their job if any train left with space while people were still outside.

It would be interesting to know if any senior management were present or were they also off because of the Bank Holiday?

 

[IslandLine101]

Surely some sort of response from NR should be given today or tomorrow. People wax on about a 'Modern railway' and a 'Joined up railway' call it what you want, but this sounds like a complete failure of planning.

 

[TrainzBK]

Which TOC provides the main staff at Lime St these days? I know Avanti/Virgin has form at Preston for terrible management of crowds and disruption. I still haven't forgiven them for the debacle when that bridge washed away near Carlisle years back, and thoroughly enjoyed stinging them for hundreds of quid's worth of Delay Repay over it.



I can't imagine the roads and parking having been much fun. And if you park somewhere outside you're back to trying to get on a train.

I know that the dispatch staff are all provided by Northern, who dispatch everything except Avanti who self-dispatch. I’m not sure on who provides other staffing however

 

[LittleAH]

Easy to blame the railway but perhaps people should be looking at the council for allowing multiple big events to be held in the city on the same weekend?

There’s only so many trains that can be released to strengthen services. You can’t force people to work their non contracted days even if they’re incentivised.

 

[E B]

it also has LFC.

snigger snigger

(and yes, I'm an Evertonian )

agreed (i’m a villa fan)

 

[Vinnym]

Can you imagine how much worse it could have been if Merseyrail hadn’t taken the sensible decision to close the lower level platform at Lime Street.

 

[dk1]

Easy to blame the railway but perhaps people should be looking at the council for allowing multiple big events to be held in the city on the same weekend?

There’s only so many trains that can be released to strengthen services. You can’t force people to work their non contracted days even if they’re incentivised.

It was a Bank Holiday rather than a Sunday, so just a normal day on the railway.

 

[lfc84]

Easy to blame the railway but perhaps people should be looking at the council for allowing multiple big events to be held in the city on the same weekend?

There’s only so many trains that can be released to strengthen services. You can’t force people to work their non contracted days even if they’re incentivised.

Radio 1 Big weekend finished on Sunday. It would have been booked a couple of years in advance with people under NDA's. The problem wasn't multiple big events, it was the volume of people into the city on Monday due the start time of 1430 and short amount of time afterwards for them to get away. The parade should probably have started much earlier

 

[Bletchleyite]

You can’t force people to work their non contracted days even if they’re incentivised.

You can't force them but every man has his price. If not enough volunteer, you just increase it until they do.

 

[LittleAH]

Radio 1 Big weekend finished on Sunday. It would have been booked a couple of years in advance with people under NDA's. The problem wasn't multiple big events, it was the volume of people into the city on Monday due the start time of 1430 and short amount of time afterwards for them to get away. The parade should probably have started much earlier

It wasn’t. Engineering work was cancelled last minute due to Radio 1 big weekend.

You can't force them but every man has his price. If not enough volunteer, you just increase it until they do.

Then Liverpool FC should pay. Where’s their responsibility? Surely the club and council should be providing the railway with anticipated numbers. Or if it becomes too big - but limiting what is done.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Then Liverpool FC should pay. Where’s their responsibility? Surely the club and council should be providing the railway with anticipated numbers. Or if it becomes too big - but limiting what is done.

The railway will have had ticket sales many tens of times the usual for a wet Bank Holiday Monday. That's your money there.

 

[lfc84]

It wasn’t. Engineering work was cancelled last minute due to Radio 1 big weekend.

Then Liverpool FC should pay. Where’s their responsibility? Surely the club and council should be providing the railway with anticipated numbers. Or if it becomes too big - but limiting what is done.

how far in advance do you think you need to book artists, arrange staging, production teams, bbc staff travel, etc. think about it. radio 1 would have been arranged a very long time in advance. just because the railway cancalled engineering works doesnt at the last minute mean anything

 

[AlterEgo]

how far in advance do you think you need to book artists, arrange staging, production teams, bbc staff travel, etc. think about it.

Liverpool should have started in January when Arsenal decided they didn't want to buy a forward.

 

[sjm77]

Easy to blame the railway but perhaps people should be looking at the council for allowing multiple big events to be held in the city on the same weekend?

There’s only so many trains that can be released to strengthen services. You can’t force people to work their non contracted days even if they’re incentivised.

This is irrelevant to my main complaint.
We are not calling for loads of additional or strengthend services, just the opportunity to fill the existing ones! Sending them out nearly empty is a failure.

 

[Lampshade]

Easy to blame the railway but perhaps people should be looking at the council for allowing multiple big events to be held in the city on the same weekend?

There’s only so many trains that can be released to strengthen services. You can’t force people to work their non contracted days even if they’re incentivised.

Not blaming the railway as a whole, but 100% blaming the complete organisational failure by the members of staff on duty yesterday.

Dishonourable mention to the female member of staff bellowing through a megaphone at fans with nowhere to move to at all.

 

[norbitonflyer]

The above is my experience as well, none of us had any mobile data, there was no communication from station staff, people at the glass doors were putting their phones up to the door with notes to the staff begging them to liaise with police (even before the other incident) to establish some sort of order - to which they simply shrugged.

I've seen this before - main entrance to waterloo closed "for safety reasons", because of limited service in that case, as a result of signalling isses. This resulted in vast numbers of people milling about on the narrow pavement outside the Waterloo Road entrance, at risk from passing buses, whilst the concourse was eerily empty (as I discovered by going up the Sandall Street steps to Waterloo East and using the (still open) link span.

It's known as "Exporting the risk" - close the station / level crossing / railway etc and no accidents will happen on them - and any accident caused by the (often much higher risk) of being on the road is not NR's problem.

 

[Iskra]

The railway will have had ticket sales many tens of times the usual for a wet Bank Holiday Monday. That's your money there.

They'll be handing a lot of that back though...

Although you could say that's the price of running a shambolic operation.

 

[talldave]

This is irrelevant to my main complaint.
We are not calling for loads of additional or strengthend services, just the opportunity to fill the existing ones! Sending them out nearly empty is a failure.

Well done for getting the thread back on track. Endless waffle about event scheduling is irrelevant when trains were leaving anything other than 100% loaded. Someone must be responsible for the shambles but it looks as if nobody cares. Even on a day that appears to be a cash cow waiting to be milked, the railway screws up big time.