Great feedback on line side fire incident last Thursday 7/8

[Andrewlong]

Pretty awful journey from Clapham Junction to Winnersh Triangle last Thursday on 1850 Waterloo to Reading. Line side fire between Whitton and Feltham stopped westbound services and we were halted at North Sheen for about 20 minutes. Got home 60 minutes late.

Very impressed with Guard on our SWT. Plenty of relevant progress communications and apologies for crap service even though it was out of his control. He even opened doors at the station and let everyone wander onto the platform. Plus help was given about how to get to Richmond and Twickenham by bus.

 

[Matt Taylor]

Have you passed this info on to SWT via customer services? Good to hear of top work from my colleagues!

 

[sarahj]

One night, due to a person on the line, we stopped off course, and opened the doors for passengers to get some fresh air. Some left the station to find another way, one group tropped off for fag. It was raining as well. (it was dark, btw). got a green, blew the whistle, people jumped on, and off we went. Only to find the smokers had not reboarded. of course all their bags were still on. doh!!!

the moral is, dont go too far and stay seen.

 

[hassaanhc]

I think they did manage to get all trains into a platform while the closure was in place?
I was on the 1852 to Weybridge and boarded at Clapham Junction at 8 minutes late. Guard did make announcements when held at signals. Just before Barnes we randomly crossed over to the outer line (probably a rare move with that crossover to the London end of Barnes :P) and stopped at that platform, which turned out to be because of the 1845 Hounslow via Richmond occupying the island platform. Cue loads of people running over the stairs to our train, some people would have got left behind if it wasn't for the driver asking the guard to open the doors again (can't think of any other reason you'd wait a minute between doors closed and then reopened without starting signal). Our luck ran out at Brentford, got held "until further notice" (the signal was at danger too) so I decided to walk and use bus. Turned out our train left after 15 mins and I was probably still around Brentford Town Centre at that time!

Wonder what caused the fire? At first I thought it might be the usual 750v power supply cable deciding to combust, however trains appeared to keep running for about an hour and the cable catching fire usually leads to a loss of traction current, so can't be to do with that :?