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"Emergency service dealing with an incident"

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Royston Vasey

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FGW services between Reading and Paddington were heavily delayed this morning from about 9am, many cancelled and still a number of cancellations and delays even nowin mid afternoon.

Anyone know what happened? NRE referred to "emergency services dealing with an incident" which didn't sound like a fatality. Was it related to the railway itself or merely an outside influence?
 
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devon_metro

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Body found Burnham (0830GMT), believe there was also an earlier bridge strike at Taplow.
 

turbo mick

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according to the news the 0557 padd -oxford driver reported the body,

I was driving the 0334 padd-rdg didnt see anything dont know how long the body had been there mind you i never look on the tracks always look ahead .

I travelled up to padd on a hst off duty and it took us 1hr 10 mins from leaving reading a lot of disruption.

Our management are getting very concerned with the amount of fatality involving our drivers on the reading to paddington theres been loads in the last 6months
 

adc82140

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I was well and truly caught up in this one- travelling from Wargrave to London on the 07:50- booted off at Twyford, the stock then went empty to Reading depot. Advised to travel to Reading- all platforms there were full, there was even a 165 parked up on the through line between platforms 4 and 5. Waited out the problem at Reading, and eventually got an HST into Paddington, arriving 1 hour 35 minutes later than I should. There wasn't too much overcrowding either- I think a lot of people had taken the SWT Waterloo option.

But full marks to FGW for the way they handled it, particularly the stationmaster at Twyford, Norman Topson. Information was plentiful, and as such all was good natured amongst the commuters- not a frayed temper to be seen. Things were still not right this evening- the 17:18 semi fast to Oxford was cancelled, an HST was stopped at Twyford to make up for this.

I think this isn't quite what is becoming a standard "one under". From what I can gather from the BBC website, the driver reported seeing a body on the track- it's not clear to me if the train actually hit it, or if someone has tried to dispose of a body there to make it look like a suicide.
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I was well and truly caught up in this one- travelling from Wargrave to London on the 07:50- booted off at Twyford, the stock then went empty to Reading depot. Advised to travel to Reading- all platforms there were full, there was even a 165 parked up on the through line between platforms 4 and 5. Waited out the problem at Reading, and eventually got an HST into Paddington, arriving 1 hour 35 minutes later than I should. There wasn't too much overcrowding either- I think a lot of people had taken the SWT Waterloo option.

But full marks to FGW for the way they handled it, particularly the stationmaster at Twyford, Norman Topson. Information was plentiful, and as such all was good natured amongst the commuters- not a frayed temper to be seen. Things were still not right this evening- the 17:18 semi fast to Oxford was cancelled, an HST was stopped at Twyford to make up for this.

I think this isn't quite what is becoming a standard "one under". From what I can gather from the BBC website, the driver reported seeing a body on the track- it's not clear to me if the train actually hit it, or if someone has tried to dispose of a body there to make it look like a suicide.

Our management are getting very concerned with the amount of fatality involving our drivers on the reading to paddington theres been loads in the last 6months

You're telling me- credit crunch woes do you think?
 

devon_metro

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Our management are getting very concerned with the amount of fatality involving our drivers on the reading to paddington theres been loads in the last 6months

Quite frankly its absurd, rarely does a week go by without one, or even two.
 

turbo mick

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Its unfortunate when these incidents happen you have to respect the person who has died that means stopping all trains to preserve the scene and get help to the driver involved.

Its not part of the job discription this happening as regullar as it has or not at all, the public have to be patient while this is going on drivers and guards etc all out of place trying to get the service back is nearly imposible a lot of crew schedules have short turn arounds especially ltv drivers
 

Matt Taylor

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Spent the afternoon in Reading for various reasons, still significant delays and cancellations when I left at 1700.
 

SWT Driver

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The suicide rate will probably get worse now we're on the home straight to 2010, the clocks have gone back so people start to get depressed with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) or Winter Blues as some people call it.

Then you have all of the "credit crunch" problems as well & then we have THAT <Spit, Spit> thing in December, so they'll get even more depressed when the bills for that come in, in the new year!

I only wish they'd resort to Paracetamol & Alcohol or similar instead of involving others, a mate of mine only came back to work a while ago only for someone to jump in front of him & Wimbledon.

Part of his head exploded on the Windscreen the other part & entrails landed in front of weekend shoppers & kids and coated a member of my depots train which was in the DS platform with bits & bobs too, he still has nightmares about it.

I know a two drivers who between them have racked up 10, they're so hardened to it now, they just have a couple of days to a week off, then straight back out on the track as if nothing's happened to them.

I've no doubt I'll cop my second one sometime in the future, I'm of the firm belief that it's a career hazard, apart from the one I've had I've been lucky in that I've either been just in front of the one it's happened to or a few behind.

The only time its really narked me was when I saw a guy at Hersham on the US platform a fair while ago now, he looked agitated as I sped past on the UF line, I really didn't know what to do, so I didn't say anything about it, it was only when I got to Waterloo, did I find out that he'd jumped in front of a up Basingstoke service doing 80mph.

It was only then did I feel really guilty about NOT saying anything & thinking if I had, he'd still been alive. When I racing through there at 90mph I still think of that day.

As it turned out the man concerned was suffering from severe depression after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, so in a way he got blessed release, but not without inflicting severe shock on the driver & the passengers on the platform who witnessed it.

We will never know what's going on inside the minds of those who decide to use the train or railway to kill themselves, the pain, anguish & despair must be way beyond the comprehension of almost everyone bar psychotherapists, psychologists & others who know all about the internal workings of the brain.

Like I said I just wish that they choose a different way to end their lives instead of destroying others.

I know that may sound utterly callous & selfish, but I think that I & every member of traincrew have a right to be when it comes to that, I/we don't want to be involved & I/we don't want to face the wrath of the next of kin.
 

O L Leigh

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SWT,

I have to say that I agree with alot of what you've written.

I had mine on only my 5th day out on my own after passing out. It was one helluva shake-up and, while the incident itself was fairly "soft", it really took the wind out of my sails for a while afterwards. No matter how long after the event you never forget it, so it does annoy me a little when folk suggest we shouldn't allow it to affect us. I've also had incidents involving agitated people, some of which I have called in and some I have not and then spent the rest of the journey fretting about. Luckily I've not had one later jump under someone else's train so I've been spared your concerns. (Then again, you can't have been the only driver to have seen him and decided not to call-in.)

Suicides are always hard to predict and incidents tend to go in waves. Since I've been on the railways we've had two periods during which we had a very high incidence of "jumpers", and neither of them appeared to coincide with the expected winter blues/christmas/new year debts model. My fatal happened as part of this first wave during which we had six deaths in a period of five weeks. The rest of the time has been pretty quiet. Hopefully FGW are just in the throes of one of these waves and things will quieten down soon.

If anyone doubts the horror that some of us drivers have to deal with, I can actually top SWT's tale. During our second spate of fatals, we had two seperate incidents in a short space of time where a person jumped in front of a non-stopping Cl317 at Harlow Mill and punched straight through the gangway door and into the cab. The first one came in through the gangway door and essentially burst, drenching the entire cab in blood and entrails. The second one wasn't quite so bad in that he didn't burst, but he still came right through the gangway door and then the cab door and ended up in the vestibule behind the cab. A neighbour of mine is a paramedic and attended the second incident and reported that the "jumper" broke every bone in their body. In both cases the driver was effectively trapped in the cab and had to wait for the emergency services to rescue them.

Also, just to show that what SWT says is not untypical, there are also two drivers that I know of who have racked up 10 fatals between them, and more than just a few who have had two or more each.

I can't blame people for choosing the railway as a means of ending their lives, but it doesn't stop me wishing that they wouldn't. It causes so much misery to so many people, not least of whom is the poor driver at the pointy end. Like SWT, I've been there and now precisely what it feels like and hearing about a fatal never fails to make me concerned for the driver involved. As SWT says, this is not what we sign up for when we decide to go on the footplate, but it is an occupational hazard that we cannot avoid.

O L Leigh
 
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