It's a shame train operators don't feel able to make the common sense decision to give the passengers the option to walk before the three hour mark, without requiring them to "smash their way out".
Obviously, some passengers won't be able to make the trek, and it's not without danger, but given the choice between walking over some slippery rocks and spending 4 hours without access to a toilet, I know which I'd prefer.
In London, most times I get on the train, I’m expecting it to be a sub-10 minute trip. I may even be just wearing a t-shirt and shorts since I was heading to the gym. Others with health issues may not have brought the medication/food they need.
Similarly when this happens in summer, you can bet many people don’t have any water with them. I’ve personally been stuck on a broken down train during a 35c+ heatwave with no AC. Elderly passengers were showing signs of heatstroke and, with no communication, it does feel desperate.
When I lived there in 2010/2011, I regularly saw signs posted at tube stations "bring water, it'll be hot!".
The text of the article suggests they had to use the emergency windows / break stuff, and that they were stuck in a tunnel without a pedestrian evacuation route (which would be illegal even here in the US where we hate trains).
The real screw up was probably lack of training of the people on duty. They should have evacuated the train (i.e., opened the doors, and had conductors guide the passengers with flashlights) after an hour, at the most.
I used to commute into London before Covid and there were times when we were delayed so long that I thought we might have to resort to cannibalism.
Whether that is telling passengers that busses will be there in two hours or whatever, you work it out.
If something like this happens in a winter storm, it can become deadly.
GWML is having constant maintenance problems. I don't think this is a budget problem, I think it's NR totally dropping the ball on keeping on top of stuff. NR is extremely poorly run and wasteful; I know many people who used to work for them but left to rejoin via a subcontractor (at a hugely increased cost to NR), to do the exact same job, because NRs payscales are extremely concrete so they constantly lose vital people to this - this isn't a budget problem as they're actually paying way way more for the same staff this way.
Subcontractors are also eating them alive because they have no senior, experienced management (see above problem). You have people basically straight out of uni "project managing" subcontractors for 7 or 8 figure contracts, completely clueless.
The whole lot has to be shut down, you have to get all the people on all the trains to a safe place and then make sure it's safe before turning everything back on.
Not saying it's impossible, just that it's not the most straightforward.
The tracks may still be in use by other trains, it fact it may be how help and alternative transport arrive.
Railway staff will complain about the people who got off the trains because we don’t have a customer focussed railway in any way shape or form. Staff are 300% safety focussed and will expect passengers to spend an indefinite amount of time on the carriage with no food, water or toilets.
It’s simply unacceptable for 7 trains (1000-5000 people) to get stuck on an extremely busy and well-funded part of the railway network in our capital city and there not be an army-style, rapid-response team dispatched to help the vulnerable. Senior management know that the British will just put up and shut up - we should be much more American in these situations.
A report will be produced, “lessons will be learnt”, then the gradual degradation of our railway will continue.
Edit: for context, regarding high expectations: a 23 minute journey in rush hour on this route is around £27 ($34)
[0] In case it changes for any reason, it's currently, "London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours".
please stay clear; the basilisk is feeding
That rail line, and Ladbroke Grove in particular, dates back nearly 200 years.
> "Trains stopped running between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport in the rush hour after damage to overhead cables, shutting down the £19billion Elizabeth Line and causing major disruption to National Rail and Heathrow Express services."
This point notwithstanding, it's not clear whether the 'cold and angry' passengers were those on the Elizabeth line - I doubt it, as the class 345 trains used on it have at least a 190Ah battery in each car that should stop the temperatures from getting too uncomfortable.
mentioned in the article
"Eventually, the battery backup running the train’s heating and light services ran out, and passengers were left in darkness for another hour-and-a-half until the evacuation came."
There’s nothing new about the line. Obviously the overhead power wasn’t there in 1840, and indeed the rails were at a different gauge, but the failure was in the GWML, on a Paddington to Cardiff express on the Down Main. The failure was on a track the Elizabeth Line trains don’t even use, however due to the type of failure a massive section of overhead power had to be shut off
you can also see it's at the throat leading out of paddington, i.e. the Great Western main line
Carnage? I think the Metro staff need to borrow a dictionary.
Metro:
The rush hour service lurched to a stop last night and left passengers onboard the crowded carriages for hours, as the driver drip-fed what little information they had to passengers.
Eventually, the battery backup running the heating and lighting ran out, and those on board were left in darkness for another hour and a half until the evacuation came.
Commuter Mikey Worrall described the train as "lurching to a stop" and then a long, several-hour wait in semi-darkness as the driver drip-fed what little information they had through to passengers.
Eventually, the battery back-up running the train's heating and light services ran out, and passengers were left in darkness for another hour and a half until they were evacuated from the train.Did they really need the heating, with packed trains?
The engineer should have turned it off, or set it to something like 16C.
PR guy’s last day, maybe.
I'd rather the reporting about things like this spread as fast as possible rather than wordsmiths spending pointless hours figuring out how to reword the same fact to sound "original".
If it was a creative piece or a documentary I'd agree with you, but this is just a dumping of facts.
Btw, I've just had a half-hour power-cut here in downtown Bucharest, it was fun getting up all those stairs with two bags of groceries but at least I hadn't got stuck in the elevator.
At a societal level the attraction of electricity is that it's fungible. Wind, Nuclear, Gas, Solar, the electricity is the same. If you need Natural Gas then too bad, no matter how cheap and readily available the Solar power or Coal is, you've got to buy Gas at any price from anyone who'll sell it to you. Individually this is at most a minor inconvenience but for a whole country it means too bad now your foreign policy is decided by people who can supply the fuel mix you need.
I just had to sit there and watch all those happy people in their combustion cars easily pumping gas at the gas station which also had no power.
Roads definitely never get shut down due to accidents either.
I personally had a single blackout in my 30 years on this planet, I think that's a fair price to pay for 24/7 light/heating/water/&c.
Sabotage would be my first candidate. Too much coincidences and deja-vues floating around.
[1] Nov 26 2023: "Traffic cut off between Atocha and Recoletos. 37 passengers evacuated after the convoy derailed"
[2] Dic 5 2023: "Another derailment on the Madrid Cercanías cuts the Recoletos tunnel and causes significant delays"
[3] Dic 8 2023: "Third departure from the track of a train at Atocha station"
Looks like something directly copied from the Catalonian independentist playbook. This is very rare on Madrid, but small incidences designed to cause delays and chaos were not uncommon near Barcelona a few years ago.
London events may, or may not fall in the same category, but... yep; same day. Suspicious.