Overshoot at MKC - 9th May

[driver9000]

I see Transport for Wales guards do this on 158s almost every day. Sometimes, if the train or platform is particularly busy, once on the platform they will open other platformed door(s) using the release on the side of the train.

That sounds more like the standard PTI check (open local door, step out etc) before releasing the doors rather than a specific instruction in the case of an overrun. I've never heard of crew being instructed to release individual doors that are still in the station with a T-key when a train has overrun a platform nor of it being the recommended practice as implied in this thread.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Train for whatever reason overruns the platform…but stops with a portion still platformed - driver steadies themselves (1/2 minutes).

Driver contacts the signaller to advise (2 minutes).

Driver informs the guard (1 minute).

Signaller informs network rail control (2 minutes)

Network rail control inform toc control (several minutes).

TOC check their protocols can the train / driver set back ? (Several minutes).

TOC control contact network rail control with authority or otherwise to set back (2 minutes).

Network Rail control contact the signaller with authority to set back (2 minutes).

Signaller contacts driver to change ends and set up the cab (5 minutes).

Driver contacts signaller to seek permission to set back / signalled gives authority (3 minutes).

Train sets back and release doors correctly (3-5 minutes).

So it could take 20 minutes easily for a basic overrun to be corrected yes.

And that all rather exactly my point. That is a truly absurd set of bureaucracy to have to initiate in order to set a train back 3 carriage lengths into a platform.

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping. And just to make it more comparable, imagine there's some safety issue that makes it inadvisable for the driver to open the doors at the point where the bus has stopped at. What's the driver going to do? Most likely look in his mirrors, check all is clear to reverse back to the correct position, and then do it. All sorted within seconds. The big things that are reasonably likely (in a sane World) to be different on the railway are that you'd probably have to let the signaller and the guard know what you're doing, and that the driver would have to walk back to the cab at the other end of the train - and those things, in a sane World, would add a few minutes. Not 20 minutes.

 

[KNN]

And that all rather exactly my point. That is a truly absurd set of bureaucracy to have to initiate in order to set a train back 3 carriage lengths into a platform.

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping. And just to make it more comparable, imagine there's some safety issue that makes it inadvisable for the driver to open the doors at the point where the bus has stopped at. What's the driver going to do? Most likely look in his mirrors, check all is clear to reverse back to the correct position, and then do it. All sorted within seconds. The big things that are reasonably likely (in a sane World) to be different on the railway are that you'd probably have to let the signaller and the guard know what you're doing, and that the driver would have to walk back to the cab at the other end of the train - and those things, in a sane World, would add a few minutes. Not 20 minutes.

You've no idea why it happened, a train doesn't just miss a stopping mark, someone here will know the exact process but the stopping procedure will have been started a mile or so earlier.

If the same thing happens at a red signal two trains might hit each other. Start there and work backwards.

 

[stuu]

And that all rather exactly my point. That is a truly absurd set of bureaucracy to have to initiate in order to set a train back 3 carriage lengths into a platform.

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping. And just to make it more comparable, imagine there's some safety issue that makes it inadvisable for the driver to open the doors at the point where the bus has stopped at. What's the driver going to do? Most likely look in his mirrors, check all is clear to reverse back to the correct position, and then do it. All sorted within seconds. The big things that are reasonably likely (in a sane World) to be different on the railway are that you'd probably have to let the signaller and the guard know what you're doing, and that the driver would have to walk back to the cab at the other end of the train - and those things, in a sane World, would add a few minutes. Not 20 minutes.

You cannot possibly compare a bus to a 260m long train on one of the busiest railways in the country. You have no idea why the train didn't stop in the platform, medical issues, technical problem, driver unfit for any other reason. The signallers and TOC will want a decent explanation before considering what to do about it, which takes time

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You've no idea why it happened, a train doesn't just miss a stopping mark, someone here will know the exact process but the stopping procedure will have been started a mile or so earlier.

If the same thing happens at a red signal two trains might hit each other. Start there and work backwards.

But two trains didn't hit each other. It would be perfectly reasonable in the days after the event to investigate what happened from a perspective of, if there had been another train there this could have been serious, so is there anything we need to do to make this less likely to happen again? But that shouldn't be a barrier to getting the train moving again as soon as possible, when the only thing that happened was a train overshot without - from what we've heard - causing any other incident.

 

[LowLevel]

But two trains didn't hit each other. It would be perfectly reasonable in the days after the event to investigate what happened from a perspective of, if there had been another train there this could have been serious, so is there anything we need to do to make this less likely to happen again? But that shouldn't be a barrier to getting the train moving again as soon as possible, when the only thing that happened was a train overshot without - from what we've heard - causing any other incident.

They aren't doing that at the time - it took about 20 minutes from arrival to departure according to RTT and it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to:

A) have the "oh **** moment"
B) speak to the guard
C) speak to the signaller
D) make control aware (they can then be using the time to find out if there's anything to prevent the original driver from working forward)
E) do the walk of shame through 7 coaches
F) set up the cab and get permission to move back into the station
G) do the walk of shame again to depart in the right direction if everyone is happy for you to do so.

It might feel like a while and if the train and circumstances allow it can be better just to operate platformed doors instead but to me that doesn't seem like an exorbitant amount of time from initial incident to departure.

Cumulative delay was 7 trains for a total of 38 minutes and the actual overshoot was 6 coaches so nearly an entire train length.

 

[KNN]

But two trains didn't hit each other. It would be perfectly reasonable in the days after the event to investigate what happened from a perspective of, if there had been another train there this could have been serious, so is there anything we need to do to make this less likely to happen again? But that shouldn't be a barrier to getting the train moving again as soon as possible, when the only thing that happened was a train overshot without - from what we've heard - causing any other incident.

The barrier is that there might be a problem with either the driver or the train. You've no idea why the incident occurred until it's checked (or in your case, at all).

Once those have been checked, which seems to have taken 20 minutes, then it's really to go.

 

[D3WY]

Recommended where? I don’t think there are [m]any TOCs where you’ll find doors open individually with a T-Key. Have you a source to cite for this statement?

No but that's one of the options I have been trained with, we have the option of emergancy fmdoor release but because there is still a risk driver could open a door not on the platform. I don't think it's a rule but a recommendation. I'd certainly prefure to take a walk over risking misjudging what doors are on the platform.

Edit sorry I just looked back at my notes as I covered this a few weeks ago. One option for a overhsoot partially on platform is individually open the doors manually, on our stock using Egress handles on each door individually. That way when closing you can walk back down the train using the T key to relocked each door as you go that way you know each door is also closed as you move back to the cab. Obviously this is depending on the type of train it's on. We have 3 choices and that's one of the..

 

[Rab Smith]

Poor driver. Nothing prepares you for the 'walk of shame' through the set to get to the other cab.
Twice!

 

[6Gman]

And that all rather exactly my point. That is a truly absurd set of bureaucracy to have to initiate in order to set a train back 3 carriage lengths into a platform.

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping. And just to make it more comparable, imagine there's some safety issue that makes it inadvisable for the driver to open the doors at the point where the bus has stopped at. What's the driver going to do? Most likely look in his mirrors, check all is clear to reverse back to the correct position, and then do it. All sorted within seconds. The big things that are reasonably likely (in a sane World) to be different on the railway are that you'd probably have to let the signaller and the guard know what you're doing, and that the driver would have to walk back to the cab at the other end of the train - and those things, in a sane World, would add a few minutes. Not 20 minutes.

I think the section I've highlighted emphasises why your view of what should happen is naive, to say the least.

"Probably" let the signaller know you're making a wrong direction move?

 

[Iddybiddy05]

And that all rather exactly my point. That is a truly absurd set of bureaucracy to have to initiate in order to set a train back 3 carriage lengths into a platform.

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping. And just to make it more comparable, imagine there's some safety issue that makes it inadvisable for the driver to open the doors at the point where the bus has stopped at. What's the driver going to do? Most likely look in his mirrors, check all is clear to reverse back to the correct position, and then do it. All sorted within seconds. The big things that are reasonably likely (in a sane World) to be different on the railway are that you'd probably have to let the signaller and the guard know what you're doing, and that the driver would have to walk back to the cab at the other end of the train - and those things, in a sane World, would add a few minutes. Not 20 minutes.

The driver might be an “at risk driver” hence why TOC control need to be asked.

Sane world and the railway are very different things unfortunately.

 

[Lewisham2221]

And that all rather exactly my point. That is a truly absurd set of bureaucracy to have to initiate in order to set a train back 3 carriage lengths into a platform.

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping. And just to make it more comparable, imagine there's some safety issue that makes it inadvisable for the driver to open the doors at the point where the bus has stopped at. What's the driver going to do? Most likely look in his mirrors, check all is clear to reverse back to the correct position, and then do it. All sorted within seconds. The big things that are reasonably likely (in a sane World) to be different on the railway are that you'd probably have to let the signaller and the guard know what you're doing, and that the driver would have to walk back to the cab at the other end of the train - and those things, in a sane World, would add a few minutes. Not 20 minutes.

Welcome to the world where (some) bus operators actively discourage any form of unsupervised reversing...

 

[Horizon22]

I'm not a train driver, and maybe I'm being naive, but I would be amazed if a train was ready to move within a second of pressing the "on" button.


I imagine that making any mistake (or anything going wrong) when you're in charge of a 260m long train can affect different people in different ways, and I'm not at all surprised there would be some people who would be, or would want to be, relieved after that kind of incident - so I'd hope that the welfare chat would be a lot more than 5 seconds

You a

Interesting. But if that's all true, it does suggest to me severe bureaucracy/design issues on the railway: I would expect a normal healthy person could walk the 260m length of a Pendolino along a platform in about 3 minutes. Add 20 seconds if the driver has to start by walking through the 3 carriages to get to the platform. For setting the cab up - is it really that hard to build an electric train for which switching it on is a case of, pressing a button and maybe the train takes about a second to do an automatic check that all its electronics are working before it's ready to move? I mean, car manufacturers manage to do that for cars. And a welfare check because of simple mistake misjudging the stopping distance/speed? I could understand an 'Are you OK to reverse the train? Yes.' which should take about 5 seconds of conversation, but any more than that just seems like excessive bureaucracy. If the TOCs manage to push all that out to 20 minutes, then my first thought is, no wonder the railways are so expensive to run!

There’s so many assumptions in here I’m not even sure where to start! Luckily lots of people have explained how the timings are reasonable. Such incidents are rare and safety of the line incidents are taken seriously and rightly so. Without doing that, it is easy to see how standards could slip & the consequences of incidents could be more severe.

 

[saismee]

You wouldn't want a driver to change cab, take power and then have a second medical issue in an unsignalled environment, would you? I am also certain that control and the signaller would like to know if it was caused by adhesion issues. It all needs to be checked before telling the driver to turn it around so they don't overshoot the other end! People have suggested the possibility of a SPAD... imagine if the driver overshot their terminus.

 

[Falcon1200]

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping.

There is no similarity whatsoever between a bus overshooting a stop, where the Driver can simply open the door and let people off (which happened to me last week) and a 125mph train overshooting a platform. The procedures which must be followed have been well explained here.

 

[Haywain]

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping. And just to make it more comparable, imagine there's some safety issue that makes it inadvisable for the driver to open the doors at the point where the bus has stopped at. What's the driver going to do?

Now imagine that it was a bus on a guided busway, where reversing isn't an option and neither is opening the doors because there is a fence a foot away...

Poor driver. Nothing prepares you for the 'walk of shame' through the set to get to the other cab.
Twice!

Only once - there will have been a platform available the second time!

 

[357]

There's a lot of comments in this thread from people who have never set foot in a cab let alone driven a train.

In my mind, I'd rather a driver who's just had a station overrun didn't simply isolate doors on the TMS and open the rest. The driver potentially isn't going to be in a fit state for some minutes to think clearly and accurately, increasing the risk of not isolating all the doors required.

At my old TOC we could isolate doors on the TMS, but in the event of a station overrun we were only permitted to do this if a visual check confirmed it was only the first set of doors behind the driver that was off the platform. Personally I didn't agree with this policy as you still have no dispatch monitors and potentially can't see the whole train but that's another issue.

From what I can see all procedures were followed correctly and while there was some delay, nobody got hurt.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

One of the reasons that station overruns don’t happen very often is because they are taken seriously when they do.

 

[danbarjon]

I remember being on a TransPennine 185 that struck an object then once speeding away from the object we accidentally sped through Newton-le-willows. Whole process took about 20-30 mins and we then left Newton-le-willows about 40 late.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

And that all rather exactly my point. That is a truly absurd set of bureaucracy to have to initiate in order to set a train back 3 carriage lengths into a platform.

Imagine if it was a bus that overshot the bus stop by some meters due to driver error stopping. And just to make it more comparable, imagine there's some safety issue that makes it inadvisable for the driver to open the doors at the point where the bus has stopped at. What's the driver going to do? Most likely look in his mirrors, check all is clear to reverse back to the correct position, and then do it. All sorted within seconds. The big things that are reasonably likely (in a sane World) to be different on the railway are that you'd probably have to let the signaller and the guard know what you're doing, and that the driver would have to walk back to the cab at the other end of the train - and those things, in a sane World, would add a few minutes. Not 20 minutes.

There's nothing absurd about it! You really don't want a train moving in the wrong direction on a line without anyone checking it's safe for it to do so.

 

[mmh]

You cannot possibly compare a bus to a 260m long train on one of the busiest railways in the country. You have no idea why the train didn't stop in the platform, medical issues, technical problem, driver unfit for any other reason. The signallers and TOC will want a decent explanation before considering what to do about it, which takes time

Very true, they're not comparable. The train is protected by the signalling system, unlike the bus.

A little devil's advocate there. I don't see that the length of the train, or the bus, has any relevance at all.

 

[MCR247]

Personally, given how many train services run each day I think it’s quite impressive that things like spads and overshoots happen as relatively infrequently as they do.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There's nothing absurd about it! You really don't want a train moving in the wrong direction on a line without anyone checking it's safe for it to do so.

The train is going to be moving a couple of hundred metres at very slow speed - which means that it's going to be stoppable within the line of sight of the driver. A quick check on Traksy shows that Milton Keynes doesn't have any mid-platform signals - so that means the train will not be crossing any signals, but will be moving entirely within a block that it already occupies - which means no other trains are going to have been allowed into that block. The driver would have spoken to the signaller to check the signaller is OK with the movement. And as if that wasn't enough it's within a main station so there are likely to be station staff who will be watching and will be able to see and are likely to alert the driver if the track isn't clear. What plausible danger do you think there is that isn't covered by all that, and which therefore needs additional procedures (beyond a quick conversation with the signaller) to mitigate against?

 

[43066]

The train is going to be moving a couple of hundred metres at very slow speed - which means that it's going to be stoppable within the line of sight of the driver. A quick check on Traksy shows that Milton Keynes doesn't have any mid-platform signals - so that means the train will not be crossing any signals, but will be moving entirely within a block that it already occupies - which means no other trains are going to have been allowed into that block. The driver would have spoken to the signaller to check the signaller is OK with the movement. And as if that wasn't enough it's within a main station so there are likely to be station staff who will be watching and will be able to see and are likely to alert the driver if the track isn't clear. What plausible danger do you think there is that isn't covered by all that, and which therefore needs additional procedures (beyond a quick conversation with the signaller) to mitigate against?

You don’t know why the incident has happened, or whether the driver may be potentially unfit to undertake any further movements at this point. What if they are having some sort of episode etc.

 

[Harpo]

it's within a main station so there are likely to be station staff who will be watching and will be able to see and are likely to alert the driver if the track isn't clear.

Time to stop digging.

 

[Falcon1200]

station staff who will be watching and will be able to see and are likely to alert the driver if the track isn't clear.

Is that really a serious suggestion as to how safety should be maintained in this circumstance?

 

[Iddybiddy05]

Actually seen it done at a major stop, due to a signaller playing jenga with trains by only using one platform, leaving a large train which arrived hanging half out of the station. Good, clear use of the PA, with one door opened on the key and a second door opened on an egress got 500 passengers off in about three minutes (yeah, by some form of a miracle). Big concern with waiting for Control & the box to organise a shunt & then let the passengers off 20-30 mins later, is someone pulls a passcom or door egress stopping the job.

The signaller will want you moving asap, control who don’t have to clean up the mess will take their merry time.

 

[43096]

Time to stop digging.

Or time for the railway to stop committing increasingly endless means to increasingly meaningless ends?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Is that really a serious suggestion as to how safety should be maintained in this circumstance?

No, it wasn't a serious suggestion about how safety should normally be maintained. The serious suggestion was, everything else that I wrote in that post. That particular remark was simply drawing attention to what the situation would actually be on the ground.

Time to stop digging.

So, no response then to the question of what other plausible danger would there be that would justify a series of bureaucratic procedures adding up to something like 20 minutes in order to avert this unknown danger....

 

[Harpo]

So, no response then to the question of what other plausible danger would there be that would justify a series of bureaucratic procedures adding up to something like 20 minutes in order to avert this unknown danger....

You start with a risk assessment of where safety could be at risk and then plan the appropriate control measures for each and every one of those degradations.

Each action in the sequence of events that need to be followed has been covered by other posters above, explaining most of the identifiable risks and their ALARP mitigations.

That’s not bureaucracy, it’s complying with the law and keeping people safe.