How do you 'evacuate' a busy station like Leeds?

[rob365]

When St Pancras International was evacuated towards the end of last year as a result of a Stage 2 fire alarm ('This is an emergency, leave the station immediately' rather than the Stage 1 Inspector Sands), the whole station was empty in under 10 minutes - people start moving as soon as they see that staff are evacuating, and its a concerted effort from the Shift Station Manager and the Customer Service Assistants to reinforce the message to MOPs who might quite understand what they need to do...

 

[modernrail]

I would agree that all I would need would be the voice of a real human shouting over the tannoy 'this is not a drill - evacuate now' or the sight of some humans in bright jackets waving arms shouting 'get out now' or some thing similar. A little bit of real human will work to get the herds moving quite quickly in most circumstances I think.

One thing I have noticed at Leeds is a long walkway coming off the end of P17 to what looks like could be some sort of holding pen. I have wondered previously if this is an escape route and would be interested if anybody knows.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

One thing I have noticed at Leeds is a long walkway coming off the end of P17 to what looks like could be some sort of holding pen. I have wondered previously if this is an escape route and would be interested if anybody knows.

That sounds like one of those safe refuge points for wheelchair users? Is it well away from any of the buildings and canopies?

 

[Scotrail314209]

Stations like Glasgow Central would be fairly easy to evacuate, as it is one of those smaller Network Rail stations. Although my issue is, during the fire alarm tests, the train announcements still play which drowns out the alarm. So I’d only hope it wouldn’t do that in the real thing as the alarm is also very mute.