Contingency Plans for Wartime and Invasion

[Tin Rocket]

Hi

I work for a rail company, I won't mention which one, but last week I asked my manager if we have contingency plans in place in the eventuality that the country is under attack or invaded seeing as we currently seem to be living in a very unpredictable climate and war doesn't seem so very unlikely and the Rail infrastructure would be a high priority target i would imagine.

He told me he didn't have a clue and he would ask his manager, I don't hold out much hope for an answer.

I just wondered if the forum had any thoughts or info to share.

 

[Clip]

There is the strategic steam reserve ready and waiting for just this eventuality

 

[randyrippley]

If you're talking about invasion, then considering all other aspects of home defence have been allowed to lapse then its very unlikely.
If we had such plans then all bridges (both road and rail) would have chambers ready to take explosive charges. The pill boxes along the old stop lines (which in many places followed railways and canals) would still be usable.
If you're talking about terrorism, either through direct action or by computer hacking then the least said in public the better

 

[Tin Rocket]

If you're talking about invasion, then considering all other aspects of home defence have been allowed to lapse then its very unlikely.
If we had such plans then all bridges (both road and rail) would have chambers ready to take explosive charges. The pill boxes along the old stop lines (which in many places followed railways and canals) would still be usable.
If you're talking about terrorism, either through direct action or by computer hacking then the least said in public the better

I should have clarified; i was talking about conventional war.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Back in BR days - there were high level plans , regularly reviewed and discussed with the various partners.

Any one involved had to sign the Official Secrets Act , so there is no chance of any discussion. Even for those retired.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Back in BR days - there were high level plans , regularly reviewed and discussed with the various partners.

Any one involved had to sign the Official Secrets Act , so there is no chance of any discussion. Even for those retired.

Am guessing you are referring principally to the Cold War period, i.e. pre 1990.

Plenty of discussion is had about such issues with people who were involved, regardless of the OSA. There's a lot of old plans that are irrelevant now, and besides many of the plans for what should happen when nuclear war broke out would have been pretty irrelevant as soon as the thermonuclear bombs started popping...

 

[Highlandspring]

Historic England did a very good study of railway Control Offices covering the second world war and the cold war including the mysterious Control Trains. It’s available to download from the Historic England website. General plans for rail transport in the cold war may be available through the National Archives but it would take hours of research to find out what’s there. British Rail had a role in transporting civil servants to the CGWHQ at Corsham (from Kensington Olympia to Warminster), which is detailed on the excellent Burlington and Beyond website here. Cold war civil defence is of great interest to me and I’ve had a few interesting nuggets of information about the railway’s response from older collegues over the years. It’s certainly a subject that is worthy of a decent write up at some point

As for current contingencies you won’t find anything online, for obvious reasons.

 

[Jonny]

For the modern railway, a white flag might be appropriate. As long as trains are non-military and thus eligible for one.

 

[6Gman]

Hi

I work for a rail company, I won't mention which one, but last week I asked my manager if we have contingency plans in place in the eventuality that the country is under attack or invaded seeing as we currently seem to be living in a very unpredictable climate and war doesn't seem so very unlikely and the Rail infrastructure would be a high priority target i would imagine.

He told me he didn't have a clue and he would ask his manager, I don't hold out much hope for an answer.

I just wondered if the forum had any thoughts or info to share.

I doubt any of the TOCs consider it their responsibility to consider such matters.

 

[Mugby]

When we can't even plan for snow and ice ???....

 

[sjoh]

Back in BR days - there were high level plans , regularly reviewed and discussed with the various partners.

Any one involved had to sign the Official Secrets Act , so there is no chance of any discussion. Even for those retired.

Doubtless you realise this, but as as piece of legislation, and not a contract, there is no expectation nor legal precedent that you 'sign' the OSA. Signing that you understand your obligations to it is merely a courtesy. If a piece of information protected under the OSA is disclosed to you, and you are made aware that it is protected as such, you are automatically bound by the stipulations of the Act.

 

[CeeJ]

if we have contingency plans in place in the eventuality that the country is under attack or invaded

I hope so...usually franchise handovers take a few months, but if it's the Russians who invade, they'll have to get it all done in 72 hours!

 

[cuccir]

A friend of mine, working in a university, carried out research a few years ago (early 2010s) into emergency planning in the UK.

The main planning activities that take place are simulated emergencies: scenarios where local and national authorities gather and simulate eg the aftermath of a terrorist attack, airplane crash, etc. From memory I think these certainly included organisations such as TfL and Network Rail, but I'm not sure if TOCs themselves were involved at this level.

So most emergency planning in the UK is centred on these sort of events. In addition, I know that there is certainly high level planning around things such as major viral outbreaks, or coordinated attacks across multiple British cities, which might be by a sate actor but would more likely be by terrorists. It wouldn't surprise me if Network Rail were involved with these at some level.

I'm not aware that any of the plans my friend heard about discussed all out invasion and I'd suggest that the risk is so low, it would be a waste of time to have these. I'm sure that somewhere in the MOD, MI5 and GCHQ there are such plans, but my hunch would be that in the absence of a credible threat, these would not include organisations such as TOCs, and possibly not even Network Rail.

As an aside, there'd be clear national security implications if private companies were involved at any significant level in such plans, particularly any part-owned by foreign governments!!

 

[theironroad]

I believe there were /are plans to evacuate central London's with basically London terminals sending trains fast to designated outer home counties stations were people would be dispersed onwards.

 

[TwinTurbostar]

It's probably best to have plans in place, but I can't see there ever being a conventional war in the UK anymore, simply because of the fact that we have nuclear weapons these days. Nobody's going to want to invade a country with nuclear capabilities, along with the fact that we're a NATO state, meaning that an attack on us is an attack on the rest of Europe, the US, and others.

 

[hooverboy]

I doubt any of the TOCs consider it their responsibility to consider such matters.

They don't really need to,as in such an event the emergency powers act would be invoked ,and the TOC's would all be under state/military control anyway.
as for RMT strikes etc, be in no doubt that these wouldn't happen.You don't do your job you get shot.

not the sort of workers utopia corbyn and mcdonnell have in mind,but in the event of war you will be lucky to have rations,let alone fair pay and working hours.

Transport systems,communications+media, food production/ distribution and energy production are all primary targets to a hostile enemy.

 

[jopsuk]

the risk of massive sea/air invasion is pretty tiny. Who would do it? Russia is unlikely, they'd have to come round so much to do so. The rest? Are nominally still our allies. Hell, we're in a political union until next March with all but one nation around the North Sea, and Norway would be unlikely belligerents.

Warfare and international relations have moved on.

 

[hooverboy]

the risk of massive sea/air invasion is pretty tiny. Who would do it? Russia is unlikely, they'd have to come round so much to do so. The rest? Are nominally still our allies. Hell, we're in a political union until next March with all but one nation around the North Sea, and Norway would be unlikely belligerents.

Warfare and international relations have moved on.

who said anything about invasion, that would come later.
blockade would be more likely, along with sponsoring other agitiants (who consider themselves freedom fighters of a particular cause- draw your own conclusions here),within the country to destroy/deplete existing(and now dwindling because of said blockade) resources .

 

[pdeaves]

who said anything about invasion

The original post: "in the eventuality that the country is under attack or invaded"

 

[krus_aragon]

I believe there were /are plans to evacuate central London's with basically London terminals sending trains fast to designated outer home counties stations were people would be dispersed onwards.

I think these were discounted (and shelved) once our likely opponents had accumulated enough hydrogen bombs that the Home Counties etc. wouldn't be much safer from attack than the major cities.

 

[AlterEgo]

As has been intimated upthread, people in a position to know the details for protecting the railway's infrastructure in the event of a war are going to be bound by the Official Secrets Act. Therefore the precise number of authoritative answers this thread can garner is zero.

 

[edwin_m]

What about zombie attacks?

 

[6Gman]

What about zombie attacks?

What about zombie threads?

 

[lyndhurst25]

With Network Rail planning to eventually concentrate all signalbox control to around a dozen Rail Operating Centres, this could leave the network vulnerable to physical or cyber atacks. The do seem to have thought about this and made some plans to mitigate the risk, as the newspaper article from the Liverpool Echo (2002) states:

A NEW bomb-proof control centre handling all Liverpool's inter-city trains to London is nearing completion.

Railtrack has spent pounds 11m on the nervecentre at Saltley, near Birmingham, which will control signalling for the West Coast main line.

It has blast doors and ventilators that close automatically in the event of an explosion ? whether inside or outside the centre.

And as well as two independent connections to the National Grid it has its own engine and generator with enough fuel for five days.

Also included in the design is a meeting room which will be equipped to allow emergency services to use it as a control room. …

 

[Highlandspring]

The Saltley WMSC “bunker” was quite a place when it opened but my understanding is that there have been a lot of issues with the building. It’s notable that 1) it was the only one of its type constructed and 2) it isn’t destined to become a ROC because there isn’t enough physical space available on the operating floor due to the constraints of the ‘bomb-proofing’.

Current and planned ROCs have a level of physical and cyber security commensurate with their position controlling critical national infrastructure and that doesn’t need to be gone into here. However having visited one of the two NATS en route air traffic control facilities I was left very impressed with how fancy their building was compared with the ROC where I work, starting with the airport style security and search before you even get through the turnstyle.

 

[JN114]

With Network Rail planning to eventually concentrate all signalbox control to around a dozen Rail Operating Centres, this could leave the network vulnerable to physical or cyber atacks. The do seem to have thought about this and made some plans to mitigate the risk, as the newspaper article from the Liverpool Echo (2002) states:

The workstations that actually control signalling assets aren’t conventional computers - they are only capable of running the very bespoke software used to control signalling assets. They’re not connected in any way to the internet, nor is it possible to plug peripherals into them. The chances of a “cyber” attack against signalling assets is zero.

Conventional (explosive or similar) attack could damage the communications equipment they use to control assets on the ground, but those assets would fail-safe if they lost communication.

 

[apk55]

Unless you know the nature of an attack it is difficult to plan for it. The best you can do is have a well dispersed control system so that areas away fro the incident can continue functioning.
Other possibilities such as a meteor strike should be considered.

 

[mpthomson]

Hi

I work for a rail company, I won't mention which one, but last week I asked my manager if we have contingency plans in place in the eventuality that the country is under attack or invaded seeing as we currently seem to be living in a very unpredictable climate and war doesn't seem so very unlikely and the Rail infrastructure would be a high priority target i would imagine.

He told me he didn't have a clue and he would ask his manager, I don't hold out much hope for an answer.

I just wondered if the forum had any thoughts or info to share.

There will certainly be one somewhere, however for what should be fairly obvious reasons very few if any on here are going to know about it and what it contains and even if anyone did they wouldn't be at liberty to discuss it.

 

[mpthomson]

who said anything about invasion, that would come later.
blockade would be more likely, along with sponsoring other agitiants (who consider themselves freedom fighters of a particular cause- draw your own conclusions here),within the country to destroy/deplete existing(and now dwindling because of said blockade) resources .

It would be extremely hard to blockade the UK either by air or sea. It's not a scenario even considered remotely possible.

 

[theironroad]

As has been intimated upthread, people in a position to know the details for protecting the railway's infrastructure in the event of a war are going to be bound by the Official Secrets Act. Therefore the precise number of authoritative answers this thread can garner is zero.

Not much different to about 50% of normal answers then