And as a customer I'm saying it's unacceptable, particularly given that other railways have a different approach - check the details about SBB's contingency approach.
Ah yes, the customer is always right.....
As for SBB, we'll get to that in a minute.
There is - that it is an acceptable risk. We aren't talking about people being hit by trains (as those can be stopped for a short period), we're now telling people, a fair few of whom may be competent hillwalkers and scramblers, that they aren't allowed to walk a few hundred metres along a railway line.
Again, we are not talking about some parochial branch line where trains can be stopped by children waving at them. The throat at Piccadilly is one of the busiest sections on the network, stopping all operations means stopping dozens of trains with thousands of people, and then managing both the services stopped and the growing number of people at the station. Come on, you know damn well how chaotic Piccadilly can get if just a handful of services start to stack up delays, you've moaned about it enough! This will be why evacuation will be the last resort where no other danger exists. But then acknowledging that would risk agreeing with decisions made by railway teams, and that is a faux pas on RUK as well clearly see time & again.
Of course if the train was full of a rambling club on their way to do the 3 Peaks, I'm sure they could all happily wander along the track with few issues. Unfortunately in the real world most people don't dress for hill walking, and their footwear reflects that. Which means even a few hundred metres of scrambling across ballast will take quite a bit of time.
Having mentioned SBB, to be fair, the Swiss approach to H&S would mean that the train would probably have self-evacuated within about half an hour, anyway. The doors automatically release when the train stops and have low-platform steps, so you open them and get off.
A couple of things about this. Firstly the SBB Intervention can get to a failed train in 30 minutes (that's at least the aim, helped by having lots of bi-directional lines), that doesn't mean they could evacuate in the same. In fact for a busy train they most certainly couldn't, because they can accommodate up to 60 people. Secondly, one of the reasons for SBB having these trains is the terrain that much of the Swiss rail network passes through. You know mountainous, with high viaducts, step embankments, long tunnels. Its the reason these trains carry water & fire crews, because an emergency on their network is more likely to be out of reach of any road or even air based services. And given that Switzerland, as beautiful as it is, can have very cold temperatures & blinding blizzards in winter, it makes sense for them to have this extra level of contingency.
But even in all this, I imagine there would be scenarios where passengers may not get evacuated from an unmovable train for, oh at least a couple of hours.
I remember being stranded for about an hour and a half on a Merseyrail train in the 90s just short of Ormskirk. Being on the way to school and fancying an excuse to miss the first lesson, a load of us remained on board. Those who wanted off were allowed out of the crew door to jump the fence (no egress-pulling, there *was* no egress on 50x in the 90s, the crew let them). I understand things have changed (particularly in the case of third rail where they could if not careful have touched live shoegear), but I think the railway has just got far too risk-averse overall.
And why do you think the railways have got more risk adverse? Perhaps those ambulance chasing law firms that like to scoop up anyone who has an accident & might be able to blame someone else? I made this point earlier, but I make it again. What would happen if a rushed evac took place and someone slipped and knocked themselves out on a rail? Who do you think would get the blame? The railway staff of course, and doubtless that would have got even more coverage in the local rag than it did, with a feeding frenzy on these forums. Unfortunately these conditions exist because we in this country always want someone to blame, and of course want financial compensation for it. Kind of ironic really, the passengers got more inconvenienced because they might be likely to attribute blame if something went wrong trying to get them away from the inconvenience.
If anyone doesn't *want* to get off and would prefer to sit and wait, fine, offer them the option, of course, as long as you warn them it could be a while. Some will choose that, either because they've got a ton of luggage that it wouldn't be practical to take with them for a walk along the ballast, because they have limited mobility, or because they'd rather have some Delay Repay as they're not in a hurry.
So you are saying you would discriminate against those with reduced mobility…..??
Seriously though, as far as we know the worst that happened to these passengers was a couple of hours stuck on a train. Despite all the fevered hypothetical scenarios being dreamed up on this thread, nobody was in danger, nobody needed urgent medical attention, no babies were delivered, no giant reptile was bearing down on the train to terrorise the passengers. At the very worst it was an annoying inconvenience to those caught up. They won't be the first, nor will they be the last. There are good reasons for not just tipping out punters trackside without careful considerations of all the factors, whether you choose to accept them or not. I've been there myself, I know what it is like, annoying but unless there is an urgent need for evacuation just something that happens sometimes. Can lessons be learned? Of course, every invocation of a contingency demands it no matter how well or badly it went. Does that mean that evacuations should be made sooner? Not necessarily. Will members on RUK complain no matter what plans are evoked? Absolutely!!
