GWML / Elizabeth line disruption due to OLE down near Paddington

[VP185]

General view from my railway friends is that the evacuation took far too long and that there's be a major investigation into this mess.

I personally think it didn’t take too long. You’ve got to get staff to site, be that NR, BTP and firefighters and then make safe the overheads safe.
You’ve got 7 stranded trains each with a considerable number of passengers onboard. Without substantial numbers of staff, that’s never going to be swift.
It doesn’t help when passengers self evacuate which means resource has to be deployed to remove them from danger.

 

[Bikeman78]

Yes, but to the previous poster's point, essentially the lack of a crossover immediately East of Paddington sinks the line whenever there is disruption in the Westbourne Park area.

Bidirectional running on the westbound line between Paddington and the crossover East of Tottenham Court Road doesn't seem like it would allow a frequent service.

It would be interesting to know whether not being able to use the reversing sidings at Westbourne Park was one of the scenarios run in the testing phase.

I'm surprised that there isn't a neutral section that separates the core and reversing sidings from the rest of the GWML.

 

[JonathanH]

I'm surprised that there isn't a neutral section that separates the core and reversing sidings from the rest of the GWML.

There does appear to be - see https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...wn-near-paddington.258947/page-5#post-6532166 - but not effective in this instance.

 

[DanNCL]

What a shame that wonderful Liz Line "demonstration evacuation" done shortly before opening was conducted on a different and far more resilient part of the line.

Not only that but it was also done with people who were expecting it and there voluntarily therefore much more likely to wait and comply with instructions from staff than ordinary passengers would be.

Probably DFT or TFL/Mayor of London, as it will of all been about cost and capacity.

The Mayor of London at the time the 345s were specified and ordered was Boris Johnson. I don’t think I need to say any more about that one!

 

[Bikeman78]

It’s a practical and resourcing issue. With the OLE down & power off it’s reasonably clear that stranded trains are going to exist and evacuations to take place. In that sense they were identified early on unlike in Lewisham.

Actually mobilising all the competent personnel and emergency services to several trains of up to 1000 passengers each and then trying to arrange transport for all of them is a huge undertaking - particularly as some were Heathrow bound with luggage & the impact of accommodation might be required. Self-evacuation might focus minds but only which train is a priority over another as again resources are stretched. I’m sure a review will take place to identify why it still took several hours. Support seems to have been mustered from all sides (including TfL).

Am I right in thinking that the self evacuations were on trains without toilets? In which case, all trains should be fitted with toilets and they should have a battery capable of keeping the toilets working for several hours. Most people will sit it out if they have access to a toilet. The prospect of soiling oneself will result in acts of desperation.

 

[VP185]

Am I right in thinking that the self evacuations were on trains without toilets? In which case, all trains should be fitted with toilets and they should have a battery capable of keeping the toilets working for several hours. Most people will sit it out if they have access to a toilet. The prospect of soiling oneself will result in acts of desperation.

I believe so, I also believe some started self evacuating after an hour.
You could also look at it as the only trains where passengers self evacuated were DOO services.

 

[choochoochoo]

Interesting story coming out about the driver on the problem train being a manager drafted in to break the GWR strike.

'An operations investigations manager was paid £500 by Great Western Railway (GWR) for a short driving shift in order to keep services running during a strike, according to ASLEF’

Train driver who 'caused wire damage' that led to Elizabeth line chaos was 'drafted in due to strike', union claims

A train driver who 'caused' overhead wire damage that led to last night's chaos on the Elizabeth Line was 'drafted in due to a strike', a union has claimed.

www.lbc.co.uk

 

[VP185]

Interesting story coming out about the driver on the problem train being a manager drafted in to break the GWR strike.

Train driver who 'caused wire damage' that led to Elizabeth line chaos was 'drafted in due to strike', union claims

A train driver who 'caused' overhead wire damage that led to last night's chaos on the Elizabeth Line was 'drafted in due to a strike', a union has claimed.

www.lbc.co.uk

Unless you know the actions of the manager driving the train caused the dewirement then it’s irrelevant.

 

[Annetts key]

My understanding is that three trains self evacuated.
One more was supposed to be a controlled evacuation, but descended into an uncontrolled evacuation.
A further one was a controlled evacuation.
And one train (GWR) returned to Paddington station.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I personally think it didn’t take too long. You’ve got to get staff to site, be that NR, BTP and firefighters and then make safe the overheads safe.
You’ve got 7 stranded trains each with a considerable number of passengers onboard. Without substantial numbers of staff, that’s never going to be swift.
It doesn’t help when passengers self evacuate which means resource has to be deployed to remove them from danger.

Several hours had elapsed before passengers started detraining and then probably as a result of train lights failing and the "reported" lack of information from drivers who themselves weren't being told anything. A major power failure such as this is a credible scenario that the industry should be planning for.

Rail Delivery Group have issued a good practice guide Meeting the Needs of Passengers Stranded on Trains that is a result of previous stranded train incidents and RAIB reports and explains very clearly passengers will take things into their own hands if communication isnt adequate and thats what happened.

Also this isnt third rail so you dont need overheads off to do an evacuation but they were already off as a result of the incident.

 

[FGW_DID]

Interesting story coming out about the driver on the problem train being a manager drafted in to break the GWR strike.

Train driver who 'caused wire damage' that led to Elizabeth line chaos was 'drafted in due to strike', union claims

A train driver who 'caused' overhead wire damage that led to last night's chaos on the Elizabeth Line was 'drafted in due to a strike', a union has claimed.

www.lbc.co.uk

So there we have it, the root cause of this incident is ASLEF! If they hadn't have been on strike then that train would obviously have been driven by an ASLEF member in such a way that the wires would have stayed up!

Clowns!

 

[Acton1991]

As soon as they realised that trains wouldn't be moving for the foreseeable, the priority should have been to evacuate quickly and safely. If this was done within 1 hour, everyone would have been happy.

 

[VP185]

Several hours had elapsed before passengers started detraining and then probably as a result of train lights failing and the "reported" lack of information from drivers who themselves weren't being told anything. A major power failure such as this is a credible scenario that the industry should be planning for.

Rail Delivery Group have issued a good practice guide Meeting the Needs of Passengers Stranded on Trains that is a result of previous stranded train incidents and RAIB reports and explains very clearly passengers will take things into their own hands if communication isnt adequate and thats what happened.

Also this isnt third rail so you dont need overheads off to do an evacuation but they were already off as a result of the incident.

You need the overheads off if there’s wires on the ground.

Secondly, even if you’re stuck on a train with a constant stream of information, passengers will still attempt a self evacuation, especially if they can see a platform or a means to escape the situation. It only takes one and others will follow. The RAIB and RDG don’t live in the real world.

As soon as they realised that trains wouldn't be moving for the foreseeable, the priority should have been to evacuate quickly and safely. If this was done within 1 hour, everyone would have been happy.

7 stranded trains evacuated within an hour. Impossible.

 

[Mag_seven]

Interesting story coming out about the driver on the problem train being a manager drafted in to break the GWR strike.

'An operations investigations manager was paid £500 by Great Western Railway (GWR) for a short driving shift in order to keep services running during a strike, according to ASLEF’

Train driver who 'caused wire damage' that led to Elizabeth line chaos was 'drafted in due to strike', union claims

A train driver who 'caused' overhead wire damage that led to last night's chaos on the Elizabeth Line was 'drafted in due to a strike', a union has claimed.

www.lbc.co.uk

To try and imply that a non union driver was responsible for this incident when at this stage no-one knows why the wires came down is quite frankly poor form from Aslef.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

To try and imply that a non union driver was responsible for this incident when at this stage no-one knows why the wires came down is quite frankly poor form from Aslef.

I was literally just thinking the same. Such speculation had it been the other way round would have been attacked immediately.

 

[Purple Train]

Interesting story coming out about the driver on the problem train being a manager drafted in to break the GWR strike.

'An operations investigations manager was paid £500 by Great Western Railway (GWR) for a short driving shift in order to keep services running during a strike, according to ASLEF’

Train driver who 'caused wire damage' that led to Elizabeth line chaos was 'drafted in due to strike', union claims

A train driver who 'caused' overhead wire damage that led to last night's chaos on the Elizabeth Line was 'drafted in due to a strike', a union has claimed.

www.lbc.co.uk

And the manager deliberately broke the OHLE how?

If that isn't a complete shambles of a non-story, I don't know what is. How on earth is the driver relevant to a dewirement?

 

[Mag_seven]

And the manager deliberately broke the OHLE how?

If that isn't a complete shambles of a non-story, I don't know what is. How on earth is the driver relevant to a dewirement?

Well potentially they could have raised or dropped a pantograph in error but no-one knows that at this stage.

 

[bramling]

Interesting story coming out about the driver on the problem train being a manager drafted in to break the GWR strike.

'An operations investigations manager was paid £500 by Great Western Railway (GWR) for a short driving shift in order to keep services running during a strike, according to ASLEF’

Train driver who 'caused wire damage' that led to Elizabeth line chaos was 'drafted in due to strike', union claims

A train driver who 'caused' overhead wire damage that led to last night's chaos on the Elizabeth Line was 'drafted in due to a strike', a union has claimed.

www.lbc.co.uk

If ASLEF want to make this implication then they need to provide some evidence to back it up. An explanation as to what they think the driver might have done to cause this would be a start.

 

[Bikeman78]

If a train has no power, I’m not sure what you’re expecting the alternative to be? Again heating & lighting are important for safety. It’s selecting the best of a terrible range of options.

Bigger batteries are a potential solution. I don't have a problem with no heating as I'll be dressed for cold weather anyway. If this had happened in a heatwave then the conditions on a 345 without air con would have been unbearable in well under three hours.

 

[theageofthetra]

345s have emergency couplers which are ridiculously located in one of the central carriages underneath some passenger seats. Imagine trying to retrieve that on a stranded train packed with 1000 passengers.

What a night! Sat in total darkness for about 3.5 hours. No announcements either from the driver, so no one onboard knew what was going on. I am very surprised that these new trains have no emergency lighting system if all power fails.

A few passengers did open doors to go to the toilet, and once we saw passengers being walked up the tracks, doors were opened by passengers and everyone was jumping out.

Ended up leaving the tracks in Ladbroke Grove, with no staff there to help, so hundreds of passengers trying to get cabs, Ubers etc - it was a sight to see.

Have to say it was very poorly managed by Network Rail and others - no communication at all or support for those who were then off the train trying to get to their final destination.

Worth remember who procured trains with no dedicated emergency battery back up to either the cab radio, or passenger comms system, and those who accepted them into service without them.

Sorry for the appalling situation you and your fellow passengers endured.

 

[Pugwash]

I personally think it didn’t take too long. You’ve got to get staff to site, be that NR, BTP and firefighters and then make safe the overheads safe.
You’ve got 7 stranded trains each with a considerable number of passengers onboard. Without substantial numbers of staff, that’s never going to be swift.
It doesn’t help when passengers self evacuate which means resource has to be deployed to remove them from danger.

With no toilets on that Train on a Thursday evening, the evacuation certainly took too long.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

You need the overheads off if there’s wires on the ground.

Agreed but once the OLE team had reviewed the exact damage at the site they could have (and presumably did in this case) agree with the ECRO about what could be renergised so they could then liaise with the signaller and control about what course of action they wanted to take. I suspect here that the lack of motorised isolator switches to allow a further shortening back of the isolated area will be seen as a root cause of not being able to contain the situation to a couple of trains.

Secondly, even if you’re stuck on a train with a constant stream of information, passengers will still attempt a self evacuation, especially if they can see a platform or a means to escape the situation.

possibly but if there isn't a clear plan being communicated then that is a relevant risk although i would acknowledge if they had been told it was going to be 3-4hrs they may have taken matters into their only hands earlier. Human behaviour hard to predict as we saw with the Northern Line incidents where things unravelled in under 90s.

It only takes one and others will follow. The RAIB and RDG don’t live in the real world.

RAIB make recommendations and are very open to them being challenged for practicality and if you look at their tracker industry bodies often disagree with recommendations they make so i find it surprising that RDG would have produced something that the industry couldn't come close to delivering.

 

[snookertam]

Bizarre move from the union to release that story. As much as I sympathise with their reasons for striking that really isn’t clever. I can only guess someone working at the union whose speciality is comms and who lacks actual railway knowledge has been responsible for that one - if it is someone with a background on the railway then that’s worse. Struggle to imagine of any driver, union or otherwise, who would fail to take the necessary action if there were obstructions on the overheads.

On the self evacuation stuff, there’s a big push in Scotland now to take mitigating actions to prevent it occurring on stranded trains, yet to my knowledge it’s never actually been in Issue here. Is this a uniquely south of England phenomenon where people attempt to do this? Even on DOO trains in the Glasgow area I’m not aware of any instances where this has happened.

 

[BPN2022]

ASLEF scapegoating a driver manager now. It would have probably happened to one of theirs, but because it was a DM is probably music to their ears. They are getting rather low in this fight.

 

[CarrotPie]

Bizarre move from the union to release that story. As much as I sympathise with their reasons for striking that really isn’t clever. I can only guess someone working at the union whose speciality is comms and who lacks actual railway knowledge has been responsible for that one - if it is someone with a background on the railway then that’s worse. Struggle to imagine of any driver, union or otherwise, who would fail to take the necessary action if there were obstructions on the overheads.

On the self evacuation stuff, there’s a big push in Scotland now to take mitigating actions to prevent it occurring on stranded trains, yet to my knowledge it’s never actually been in Issue here. Is this a uniquely south of England phenomenon where people attempt to do this? Even on DOO trains in the Glasgow area I’m not aware of any instances where this has happened.

The RDG document itself mentions "London" as being "significantly more likely to self-evacuate", probably due to the fact that more passengers know where they are, there are more of them, more trains without toilets and it's happened many times before.

 

[VP185]

Agreed but once the OLE team had reviewed the exact damage at the site they could have (and presumably did in this case) agree with the ECRO about what could be renergised so they could then liaise with the signaller and control about what course of action they wanted to take. I suspect here that the lack of motorised isolator switches to allow a further shortening back of the isolated area will be seen as a root cause of not being able to contain the situation to a couple of trains.

possibly but if there isn't a clear plan being communicated then that is a relevant risk although i would acknowledge if they had been told it was going to be 3-4hrs they may have taken matters into their only hands earlier. Human behaviour hard to predict as we saw with the Northern Line incidents where things unravelled in under 90s.

RAIB make recommendations and are very open to them being challenged for practicality and if you look at their tracker industry bodies often disagree with recommendations they make so i find it surprising that RDG would have produced something that the industry couldn't come close to delivering.

Under no circumstances, are you allowed to use a mobile phone in the driving cab of a train so the ability to relay information to the driver of a DOO service is pretty much nil.
The only real line of communication a driver has is with the controlling signaller via the GSMR…. and in situations like this they will be totally snowed under.

 

[CarrotPie]

Under no circumstances, are you allowed to use a mobile phone in the driving cab of a train so the ability to relay information to the driver of a DOO service is pretty much nil.
The only real line of communication a driver has is with the controlling signaller via the GSMR…. and in situations like this they will be totally snowed under.

What about company-issued mobile phones? I seem to recall those have been used before when the GSM-R was unusable (Lavington comes to mind), though admittedly not always in driving cabs.

 

[VP185]

What about company-issued mobile phones? I seem to recall those have been used before when the GSM-R was unusable (Lavington comes to mind), though admittedly not always in driving cabs.

Not permitted to be used in the cab. Some companies will state that you can’t use them on the platform if you have a key in the desk!

 

[Starmill]

You need the overheads off if there’s wires on the ground.

Secondly, even if you’re stuck on a train with a constant stream of information, passengers will still attempt a self evacuation, especially if they can see a platform or a means to escape the situation. It only takes one and others will follow. The RAIB and RDG don’t live in the real world.



7 stranded trains evacuated within an hour. Impossible.

An hour is a target, not a cast-iron guarantee. Most people won't try to evacuate themselves if they have to wait an hour and ten minutes. They will if you ask them to wait four hours.

 

[VP185]

An hour is a target, not a cast-iron guarantee. Most people won't try to evacuate themselves if they have to wait an hour and ten minutes. They will if you ask them to wait four hours.

As you said, most people.

Once one self evacuates. Others tend to follow.