ECML animals incident near Grantham 20-21/8

Passengers will self-evacuate from stranded trains. There are a number of variables that will influence how long it will be before this occurs, including perceived proximity to viable alternative routes, such as a station, road or obvious settlement. Weather conditions, the level of crowding, the availability and state of on train facilities are also important. The make up of the on train population (commuters, varied leisure passengers or lots of football fans returning from a match, soldiers going on leave) - often, once the passenger with the necessary determination goes, others will follow.

Staff can mitigate the risk and extend the time before self evacuation commences with clear, specific information and individual assistance to vulnerable passengers plus distribution of refreshments where this is possible, plus credible and specific information about the hazards that those self evacuating would face (without inadvertently providing an instruction manual).

The key problem facing rail operators, is that the major failures such as this and others where self evacuating passengers have become a problem are very infrequent and rarely have the same specific characteristics.

Making a business case for providing the people and equipment on hand (and flexible infrastructure, such as crossovers or bi-directional signalling) that would resolve things more rapidly is difficult, given all of the other funding challenges.

There is also a difficult balance for the on site and remote staff involved between ‘one more attempt to resolve the issue’ and planning a coordinated evacuation. No easy answers, but the risk should be clear in the minds of staff once it becomes obvious that a given incident will take an hour or more to resolve…

bahnause said:

I’m curious to hear the excuse as to why they can’t manage to evacuate passengers from a train within a reasonable time

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What is a reasonable time? Different whether in or near a city or station, or stranded miles from anywhere in the countryside.

Train to train evacuation can be and is done, I have been involved in several such myself, but has its own issues, one being that it will block the adjoining line for a possibly considerable length of time, meaning further delays and possibly further self-evacuations.

I suspect most of those who gaily self-evacuate have no idea of the physical reality of walking down a railway line, especially if in sandals, flip-flops, high heels or similar unsuitable footwear, let alone doing it in the dark. I did walk along a line once, with permission, and it wasn't easy in walking boots.

After a couple of days reflecting on this experience, I think the main issues leading to self-evacuations were a) Apparent lack of motivation to get passengers moving without extreme delay and b) Lack of communication on how long the delay was going to be, making it look like they had no idea.

I would have thought that given the locations of the trains, and the incident being at the end of service without more trains entering the area, it should have been possible to implement single line working through Stoke Tunnel.

If not possible to pass through the incident location at all, then northbound passengers should have been carried back to Peterborough either on their existing trains running wrong-direction or by train-to-train evac. Then either have road transport/hotels arranged or a Class 800 or two to take passengers via Lincoln.

I understand that evacuating passengers around this incident location would only be an absolute last resort, but that does not excuse leaving the undamaged trains stranded where they were for so long.

Falcon1200 said:

What is a reasonable time? Different whether in or near a city or station, or stranded miles from anywhere in the countryside.

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What I or anyone else or the railway considers to be a reasonable length of time is completely irrelevant. What matters is how long a group of paying customers can reasonably be expected to sit still. It’s not as if the railway had a choice in the matter. The general consensus seems to be around an hour or 90 minutes. Perhaps a little longer if you can explain a plan for when and how things will get moving again.

As ever with any disruption, the railway is generally bad at communicating the issue, the likely resolution and the customer impacts. We are told it's too difficult to provide this information but maybe if self evacuations increase it might focus minds on finding a way. Perhaps a central disruption team given there are almost always multiple incidents across the network?

bahnause said:

Perhaps a little longer if you can explain a plan for when and how things will get moving again.

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sh24 said:

We are told it's too difficult to provide this information but maybe if self evacuations increase it might focus minds on finding a way.

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I agree, absolutely, that more and better information during disruption is essential, however the nature of some incidents, the one discussed here and others, means that absolutely nobody knows how long it will last, or when any particular train will be on the move. But updates should be provided as often as possible.

Pivoting slightly - a 4.5 hour delay for hitting an animal does seem rather extreme. Appreciate that the lack of air pressure makes the train immovable, but that it takes so long to resolve in what is not a particularly remote location is not a good advertisement for the railway.

MCR247 said:

To go where exactly?

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Stoke Tunnel isnt really a remote area, its about 3 miles south of Grantham. North of the Tunnel its about 1/2 mile from the A1 Dual Carriageway youd see the street lights and service area etc. from the top of the cutting. South of the Tunnel theres a NR engineers access road that leads out through a farm to a local b road. Not that Im condoning self evacuation but 5 hours is just far too long.

sh24 said:

We are told it's too difficult to provide this information but maybe if self evacuations increase it might focus minds on finding a way

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Haha no they'll just end up criminalising the specific act of self evacuation from a train. Too tempting what with the proliferation of CCTV on trains now ("for our safety and security" remember)

styles said:

Pivoting slightly - a 4.5 hour delay for hitting an animal does seem rather extreme.

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Yes.... But sometimes with an incident like this, rectification and repair is expected much sooner, then something is found or happens to delay this, so later movement is anticipated but then something else prevents this, and so on; Despite the best efforts of all involved. And for the likes of the Control staff dealing with such an event time passes much more rapidly, and without even noticing hours have passed!

cats_five said:

I suspect most of those who gaily self-evacuate have no idea of the physical reality of walking down a railway line, especially if in sandals, flip-flops, high heels or similar unsuitable footwear, let alone doing it in the dark. I did walk along a line once, with permission, and it wasn't easy in walking boots.

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First of all, if the other lines are not blocked - the risk of other trains.
Ballast isn't the easiest thing to walk on and you shouldn't step on sleepers.
In 3rd rail land... well..

cats_five said:

I suspect most of those who gaily self-evacuate have no idea of the physical reality of walking down a railway line, especially if in sandals, flip-flops, high heels or similar unsuitable footwear, let alone doing it in the dark. I did walk along a line once, with permission, and it wasn't easy in walking boots.

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When I was a teenager I lived near a railway line and one evening after work decided that, as it was the most direct route, walking home along the railway was a good idea. What an absolute nightmare, and I was wearing pretty sturdy boots. Walking on ballast is hard going, and owing to the vegetation I lacked any easy route to end my adventure for quite a while.

A couple of years later I saw a guy climb up onto the tracks and start walking. I asked him where he was going. He said home, and I estimated his home was about 5 miles away. I said don't do this to yourself, I've been there and done that. He carried on anyway. I went to sleep imagining that weird stomping-sliding footwork you do on the ballast and how much he'd regret it by the time he got home.

marshlinker said:

Stoke Tunnel isnt really a remote area, its about 3 miles south of Grantham. North of the Tunnel its about 1/2 mile from the A1 Dual Carriageway youd see the street lights and service area etc. from the top of the cutting. South of the Tunnel theres a NR engineers access road that leads out through a farm to a local b road. Not that Im condoning self evacuation but 5 hours is just far too long.

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That southern access point really isnt suitable for coach access, its truly horrible. It also requires a long walk along the tracks to get to and assuming someone has the key to the access then you need to arrange travel to a suitable onward point. This of course isnt specific to this location and could be repeated many places over and over the countryside.

The main thing we need to sort is the ability to perform train to train evacuations in situations like this. This problem is inevitably the lack of communication when issues have occurred.

yoyothehobo said:

That southern access point really isnt suitable for coach access, its truly horrible. It also requires a long walk along the tracks to get to and assuming someone has the key to the access then you need to arrange travel to a suitable onward point. This of course isnt specific to this location and could be repeated many places over and over the countryside.

The main thing we need to sort is the ability to perform train to train evacuations in situations like this. This problem is inevitably the lack of communication when issues have occurred.

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I wasn't suggesting alternative arranged egress, but I'm pretty certain that in the event of a train failure in that area except maybe the tunnel itself. I could exit the train.

Climb over the fence and walk to a suitable taxi pick up (or walk in to Grantham itself) and be well on the way home via an alternative train, bus or taxi within 5 hours.

Five hours isn't acceptable or reasonable, and people need to stop trying to make excuses as to why it is.

Moderator note: Discussions originally from this thread continue at:

Evacuation policy during major incidents

Moderator note: split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/ecml-animals-incident-near-grantham-20-21-8.306199/ It really isn't hard to forsee people taking matters into their own hands after such a ridiculous amount of time. 2 hours max for a plan to be in place to walk people off to the...

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and

When walking along track, why shouldn't you step on sleepers?

Moderator note: split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/ecml-animals-incident-near-grantham-20-21-8.306199/ you shouldn't step on sleepers Why?

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