I know there was a different incident earlier, one that was much more disruptive than this, but I was on the Horsham-Peterborough train that broke down just outside Potters Bar this afternoon around 1340, blocking the down fast line for a while.
When we stopped and the driver announced that a fire alarm had been activated I thought we might be stuck for hours. However, compared to what I've come to expect from GTR it actually seemed to be handled quite well. The driver made useful announcements at regular intervals. The train crawled into Potters Bar and everyone was detrained safely from a 12 car train onto a short platform via one door onto the next Peterborough train. Plenty of staff around to assist. When waiting to get off the broken down train I was quite worried that we'd all just be kicked off and that people would just be expected to know they needed to get a Cambridge train and change at Stevenage or Hitchin, so the following train stopping was a big positive response. Would not have expected that to happen back in June or July.
The bit that annoyed me slightly was the revenue protection officer getting on at Sandy and wanting to do a full ticket inspection. Not their fault, but not the wisest of ideas on a train that was packed until Biggleswade one station before with passengers who were annoyed at the delay.
The incident did highlight again the issue that passengers just don't move all the way down the train though, even with the wide, open layout of the class 700s. The faulty train emptied everyone into the front coach of the following train, but rather than moving towards the rear everyone stayed in the front few coaches. The result was that the front of the replacement train was overcrowded, but the rear half was relatively empty.
Again, small disruption compared to what tragically happened later, but hopefully an example that not everything GTR do is awful. If only they could sort out the reliability of the 700s.
