I was at Euston yesterday evening & booked on the 20:07 Lime St service, which left at around 20:40. By that point, services were returning to normal, albeit with residual delays & some cancellations. From my viewpoint, I think the railway did a good job in difficult circumstances, although I acknowledge my experience was at the tail end of a chaotic day.
Aside from the trauma of the event itself for all concerned, one of the biggest hurdles the railway has when recovering from such incidents is the lack of any back up resource. Trains, train-crew and other staff are all worked to pretty exacting schedules these days, with little or no slack in the overall picture, should something happen.
My impression yesterday, is that train crew availability was one issue that VT were struggling with, as aside from any staff taken off duty because of the incident itself, staff already on the road are racking up time whilst stuck on trains not going anywhere. They also get displaced quite easily, all of which contribute to the knock on delays from any incident such as this. As alluded to up-thread, the TOC's are in the lap of the emergency services, who at times such as these, have a darned difficult job to do in trying circumstances. I certainly wouldn't like to have to do some of the jobs the police & ambulance service people would have been tasked with yesterday (or Wednesday).
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. The best way forward would, of course, to get the number of PHBT down to as near zero as possible, for humanitarian reasons above all else. Aside from that, what could the railway realistically do? Employing lots of extra staff to be on standby "just in case" is expensive, as is having spare trains sat at strategic points.
