cornishjohn
Member
- Joined
- 1 Feb 2011
- Messages
- 100
They went for a short walk in easy country from a railway station with a reasonable expectation that the advertised train would arrive to take them home as I assume it deposited them earlier in the day.
Actually, I would question the "easy" bit. Last time I walked that way it was all pretty marshy.
Regarding the expectation that a train should arrive, we all know that occasionally it may not: bridge strikes, tractors on level crossings, broken rails, fallen trees, on-board fires etc. So it does no harm for a passenger to have a "Plan B" for any trip. Of course, close to civilisation on a more frequent service, that plan-b is less intensive (perhaps just catch a bus instead) than at Berney Arms. When commuting by rail in my last job I experienced a 2 hour delay approximately once per year.
No they doubt prepared accordingly for those circumstances. It shouldn't take a volunteer life boat to provide that service!
The TOC clearly failed to provide the right information, or implement it's own Plan-B in time. With the amount of electronic connectivity available this is quite unforgiveable. Whether the lifeboat was appropriate, if the local police involved perhaps they know the actual answer to the private road access questions?? [Yes, I know the road is there, I walked along it - see above - I mean taxi permission; locked gates and so on] Had the TOC help line explained the correct situation in the first instance, the party could have walked a couple of miles to civilisation nearer than G. Yarmouth well before it got dark, and the TOC could have arranged a taxi to meet them there - the family were after all planning a day "exploring" anyhow.
Having looked at a few realtimetrains reports, it seems more often than not Berney Arms is a "No report". How is it possible to distinguish this from "Did not call".
In the good old days, before mobile phones and electronic help points, what would we have expected such a family to do? (Let's assume it was the pub's day off)