GWML / Elizabeth line disruption due to OLE down near Paddington

[DC1989]

Imagine a disabled person alone on that train 3+ hours with no news from the driver. Fine for able bodied workies to force open the door for a slash but not everyone can do that.

While appreciating it's a difficult situation it's just not good enough

 

[ianBR]

This just goes to show why passengers are often better off rescuing themselves. Self-egress, check for third rail or trains, walk back to last station. They would have done a much better job than the trained professionals did last night, and I'm amazed anyone waited four plus hours in the dark on a freezing, packed standing only train with no toilets.

 

[800001]

This just goes to show why passengers are often better off rescuing themselves. Self-egress, check for third rail or trains, walk back to last station. They would have done a much better job than the trained professionals did last night, and I'm amazed anyone waited four plus hours in the dark on a freezing, packed standing only train with no toilets.

That’s very disrespectful to the trained professionals on the ground who will be following instructions and procedure, and they will of done there absolute best to help people, while no doubt facing abuse from people.

It’s the process and procedure that needs urgent investigation and amendment, as everyone on here will agree taking up to 4 hours to rescue people is certainly completely unacceptable.

 

[Taunton]

The OLE infrastructure in that area are mostly headspans which means that damage to one road can affect the others; that's why the incident on the Queen's funeral was so impactful, as all 4 roads went down in one incident. This one doesn't appear to be quite as bad with only the Down Main affected.

This serves as a reminder that a complete failure, meltdown and multi-hour stranding is to be anticipated as an annual event on this section.

What a shame that wonderful Liz Line "demonstration evacuation" done shortly before opening was conducted on a different and far more resilient part of the line.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

RAIB's investigation into the Lewisham incident had recommendations directed at SE and NR(SE Route) and their last update of 19/9/22 confirms four out of five recommendations implemented. Also RDG have used these recommendations and those from Kentish Town (2011) in the production of meeting the needs of passengers stranded on trains which should guide NR and TOCs on how they manage such situations.

This is a 69 page document but pretty comprehensive and certainly covers last nights incident although how the various parts of the industry directly involved last night have taken it and used it for their own procedures and training is an unknown. They also have an indicative timeline (easy on paper of course) that detraining should commence within an hour if there is no timeline for restoration although I suspect in these situations the world is changing around them that a decision taken earlier on available info then has to be amended as something new comes to light. The standout is communication with passengers is key and that appears to have been poor given reports albeit negative stuff will always appear on Twitter et al not positive stuff.

I note this particular clause 5.1.2 (ii)

– the challenge of shifting the focus of the response away from railway operating considerations to meeting the needs of stranded passengers should not be underestimated. As an industry we do not always have a strong “think customer first” culture, but staff showing empathy, responsiveness and confidence in their competence will provide reassurance. It is strongly recommended that a senior manager is specifically assigned to ‘think passenger need’ (see Part 7.3). More generally, the buy-in of all relevant staff is needed if this is to be achieved and applied, including those who are not usually called on to interact directly with passengers, such as signalling and control office staff whose line managers therefore also have an important role to play

 

[Dryce]

Because bluntly although you may disagree it is more important to have a functioning radio system so the driver can call control and the signaller & heating/lighting that a passenger information screen that works, particularly when you are stranded and that won’t have any bearing on reality. The internal PA lasts longer. Everything is important, just some things more then others.

I don't think there is any issue with the likes of the drivers' systems being a priority - rather a surprise about the apparent lack of resilience of the other systems - particularly lighting. It's not about exchanging resilience of one for the other - but ensuring adequate resilience for both.

 

[Horizon22]

I never said that it isn’t important to have GSM-R or heating/lighting.

However, modern technology means this shouldn’t be an issue. It’s a shock that it is - and surprising the ORR aren’t taking this as a risk.

Keeping passengers on the train is one of the most important things for safety. Why is one of the main ways being cut off at the earliest point?

If a train has no power, I’m not sure what you’re expecting the alternative to be? Again heating & lighting are important for safety. It’s selecting the best of a terrible range of options.

 

[rower40]

Electric-only units should have a set of pedals under each seat; 900 people can generate quite a bit of juice to keep the lights/PA on, or even enough to creep the unit out of the isolated/switched-off area.

This post may be slightly tongue-in-cheek.

 

[silverfoxcc]

Looks like we dodged a bullet going into PAD last night.from Hayes.(18.12) Coming home ...a bit different. Arriving at Liv St at 23.00 headed for the Lizline and it was mobbed at the top of the Escalator.saw a written notice about reduced service out of PAD. Did a quick think and jumped a H+C to PAD to check there ( as last time i had a situation like this the Liz was running West out of Pad.but no info at Liv St)...not this time..screens blank with lots of info on reroutes... Soi How to get to Hayes? back on the circle to Earls Court , Pic to Heathrow T2/3 and the N140 bus to Hayes Got home at 02.00..
I see on Facebook Rachel Riley and James Blunt were moaning about it.. Perhaps they were stuck on a train unlike us, but it would surprise me if they had been like us and their PA was not about to tell them what to do!!

Memo to TfL retro fit toilets please.. bad move at design stage, esp when the GWR stock ( 165) did have them.
Trust everyone did get home ok. three hours form Liv St instead of 75mins the only good thing was the M4 was quiet and we might have done a new point to point time of Hayes to Bracknell in 25mins...( didn't see any flashes in the rear view mirror....lol

 

[800001]

Looks like we dodged a bullet going into PAD last night.from Hayes.(18.12) Coming home ...a bit different. Arriving at Liv St at 23.00 headed for the Lizline and it was mobbed at the top of the Escalator.saw a written notice about reduced service out of PAD. Did a quick think and jumped a H+C to PAD to check there ( as last time i had a situation like this the Liz was running West out of Pad.but no info at Liv St)...not this time..screens blank with lots of info on reroutes... Soi How to get to Hayes? back on the circle to Earls Court , Pic to Heathrow T2/3 and the N140 bus to Hayes Got home at 02.00..
I see on Facebook Rachel Riley and James Blunt were moaning about it.. Perhaps they were stuck on a train unlike us, but it would surprise me if they had been like us and their PA was not about to tell them what to do!!

Memo to TfL retro fit toilets please.. bad move at design stage, esp when the GWR stock ( 165) did have them.
Trust everyone did get home ok. three hours form Liv St instead of 75mins the only good thing was the M4 was quiet and we might have done a new point to point time of Hayes to Bracknell in 25mins...( didn't see any flashes in the rear view mirror....lol

Riley and Blunt were stuck on trains with the 1000s of others, have seen some good humoured tweets from both.
Ps if travelling socially why would there pa be telling them anything, as it was they were stuck couldn’t do anything, same as everyone else.

 

[Brush 4]

The lack of information seems to happen every time, anywhere on the network. Each time, as also with NHS, social services, Police failures, they say lessons will be learned. They never are. Why not? Incompetence? Deliberate stalling to save money? Systems that disempower staff?

 

[Horizon22]

Riley and Blunt were stuck on trains with the 1000s of others, have seen some good humoured tweets from both.
Ps if travelling socially why would there pa be telling them anything, as it was they were stuck couldn’t do anything, same as everyone else.

Yes overall there were 7 stranded trains (4 Elizabeth line, 2 Heathrow Express, 1 GWR).

Passengers numbers for all trains combined was probably about 5-7000. Elizabeth line trains were busier than usual due to GWR strike action and it was still shoulder PM peak when it started on a Thursday, the busiest day of the week.

 

[Horizon22]

The lack of information seems to happen every time, anywhere on the network. Each time, as also with NHS, social services, Police failures, they say lessons will be learned. They never are. Why not? Incompetence? Deliberate stalling to save money? Systems that disempower staff?

I would say sometimes it’s simply the complexity of the situation, the multiple parties involved and the scale of such an incident.

Sometimes we as society may need to accept that perfect communications & information during such times of crisis will not always be immediate and even timely in a medium term manner.

Perhaps it would be better if it was just one organisation dealing with everything but even with “nationalisation”, you’d still have the emergency services and TfL probably as separate entities and other departments still have to liaise.

The principles of JESIP and Major Incident Plans will also kick in which should set up a command structure. But ultimately there will be a range of factors to consider, including for instance resourcing qualified personnel to trains.

 

[notverydeep]

That’s very disrespectful to the trained professionals on the ground who will be following instructions and procedure, and they will of done there absolute best to help people, while no doubt facing abuse from people.

It’s the process and procedure that needs urgent investigation and amendment, as everyone on here will agree taking up to 4 hours to rescue people is certainly completely unacceptable.

Indeed. The key thing that the industry must address is planning for what the humans on the train will do, rather than what we hope they will do or plead with them to do. If the solution or procedure requires that the passengers should behave differently, it will fail. Any solution that relies on inventing a better human will fail...

 

[Howardh]

Regarding the lack of communication because the power was down, as the vast majority of passengers have mobile phones, they can still access twitter or the TO's site, so is information relayed that way in real time? It's the first place I'd go to.

 

[endicomark69@g]

There will (rightly and wrongly) be a lot of morning-after pontificating about any incident of this nature, but all I'll comment on is this:

3.5 hours+ to keep people on dark, cold trains with NO effective Comms and no external reassurance that help/rescue is coming is unacceptable and dangerous.

I've no doubt the people involved in this incident did their best to sort it out, and had all kinds of procedures/checks and balances they had no choice but to follow.

But an incident close enough to a mainline Terminal that you can walk to it in 20mins by road is NOT out in the wilds and beyond the help of all sorts of ancillaries and third party options.

And I agree with a couple of others here that this "sort" of incident is NOT beyond the bounds of anticipation and therefore should be planned for in a way that can't leave people out on live/dead track for this long. There have been at least three (probably more if I could be bothered to look them up) OL issues on this stretch (Slough to Pad) this year alone - if emergency planning STILL can't do better than this then it's more than just a case of questions need asking, Heads need to roll somewhere.

The BTP deciding to not follow their training and differ to some off-duty manager - who quite clearly cannot possibly do more than guess as to the full extent and nature of the stoppage and therefore isn't in any position to take Silver Control decisions - doesn't sound like it was a bright idea either, especially if other trains had started self-detraining and people were already on the tracks.

I shall watch the mop-up on this with interest as the saying goes.

 

[Mojo]

Who remembers all the hoopla and self-congratulation shortly before the Liz Line opened of the "immaculately organised" emergency evacuation of an immobile train, done between Woolwich and Custom House, where they had several hundred volunteers take part. Whatever happened to those procedures, which seem to have gone out of the window?

Ah, here it is on YouTube:

Remember that this was an exercise on RfLI infrastructure using their rule book and operational procedures, whereas this incident and subsequent detrainments was on Network Rail infrastructure and managed by them.

 

[sprunt]

To be fair that’s just the TfL payment system operating in the normal way where someone doesn’t touch out. It isn’t being done deliberately to target people caught up in this incident!

The system can be configured to act differently though - for example, when there are big events at Wembley or similar they open the gates, tell people to just walk through and set the system up to assume any unfinished journeys ended there, so they could possibly have done something similar last night.

 

[Agent_Squash]

I’m no fleet engineer but a power bank for your phone is obviously a totally different scale to a modern 9-car train, which are heavily reliant on computer systems with a huge range of different elements.

I imagine the answer is something to do with cost, space and practicality. I’m just explaining what the current situation is which has some part in explaining why events would unfold the way they did.

The technology is the same regardless. Considering a relatively small battery can power an electric car for miles, why can't the railway even power LCD screens for an extended period?

Also, TFL have put out a statement which appears to attempt to blame GWR:

https://twitter.com/TfL/status/1733079303766605948

We’re sorry that the damage caused to Network Rail’s overhead power lines by another rail operator’s train has caused significant disruption to our Elizabeth line customers as well as all train operators out of London Paddington. We worked to get customers off of stranded trains as quickly as possible and to provide any support needed. Network Rail are continuing to urgently to repair the power lines and we’d encourage all customers to check before they travel while they do this.

 

[Tw99]

Indeed. The key thing that the industry must address is planning for what the humans on the train will do, rather than what we hope they will do or plead with them to do. If the solution or procedure requires that the passengers should behave differently, it will fail. Any solution that relies on inventing a better human will fail...

Totally agree. Every time there's one of these incidents, the passengers get criticised if they decide to take matters into their own hands after being stranded for hours.

If the railway wants to avoid this happening, it simply needs to reliably get people off the stranded trains within a couple of hours. If it can't do that, then there's no point in subsequently complaining about human nature.

 

[apbj]

Also, TFL have put out a statement which appears to attempt to blame GWR:

Among many deeply unimpressive aspects of TfL's handling of this incident, starting a blame game with another operator over an infrastructure failure is perhapds the worst. A real low point for the railway in general.

 

[Jamiescott1]

The gwr website has just been updated. Disruption was expected until 1500 has been changed to disruption expected until 1800.

 

[jfowkes]

Do we know in any detail what actually happened? The root cause of the OHLE failure?

 

[hwl]

The terminology "emergency isolation" is no longer used and is called an "emergency switch-off", largely to remove ambiguity around the term as isolation suggests electrically safe when it's not necessarily the case.

The plan for GWEP was remote switching and electronic securing, but it all got descoped due to cost so it is largely manually operated switches and lock-off, for which you need to be at least an Authorised Person.

The OLE infrastructure in that area are mostly headspans which means that damage to one road can affect the others; that's why the incident on the Queen's funeral was so impactful, as all 4 roads went down in one incident. This one doesn't appear to be quite as bad with only the Down Main affected.

Regarding re-energisation in a situation like this, firstly you need to fully understand how much has been damaged, then start drafting the isolation paperwork to arrange an isolation around that, then implement the isolation, before you can start turning things back on, to mitigate the risk of inadvertently livening up something that would create a risk of electrocution or further damage or fire or whatever. Again headspans complicate this due to the nature of the insulators being part of the span.

About 9.30pm they were ready to re-energise but the ECR were reluctant to given reports of members of public being on the infrastructure. It was around 11.30pm when the Reliefs were brought back in.

From what I understand the incident location was near the (new as part of Crossrail) Kensal Green supply point which might have complicated things somewhat. The relief lines in that area had the headspans replaced as part of the Crossrail OOC depot changes but on the mains it it a mix of older headspans (which is where I understand the failure has been) and some new series 1.

 

[apbj]

That’s very disrespectful to the trained professionals on the ground

Embarassing. Every salaried employee of the railway involved in this incident should be under investigation, and if this is the level of training we can expect of them, questions must be asked about their training and employment costs. We're constantly told that lots and lots of very highly-paid staff are needed for customer safety, yet time and time again they are proven to be utterly useless in the slightest emergency. In everything from timetables and planning to public information and safety, the Elizabeth line has Rolls Royce input costs and Morris Minor outcomes. The trained professionals are being disrepectful to the paying passengers, not the other way around.

 

[43096]

R/e lack of communication because the power was down, as the vast majority of pax have mobile phones, they can still access twitter or the TOC's site, so is information relayed that way in real time? It's the first place I'd go to.

And if they don’t have Tw@tter or whatever it is called? Not everyone wants to sign up for a service run by the manchild who runs it.

 

[stuu]

Leaving aside the evacuation aspect, I'm curious as to why, as mentioned frequently on here, the UK seems prone to OHLE failings .

How does this compare to other operators in other nations ?....and why please.

It's a pretty minor news item so of course it doesn't get reported much outside the local area

But if you search for "Paris défaut d'alimentation électrique" for example, you will see fairly frequent news items featuring that term

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Totally agree. Every time there's one of these incidents, the passengers get criticised if they decide to take matters into their own hands after being stranded for hours.

If the railway wants to avoid this happening, it simply needs to reliably get people off the stranded trains within a couple of hours. If it can't do that, then there's no point in subsequently complaining about human nature.

As i said in my post post above https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-ole-down-near-paddington.258947/post-6532430 RDG do have a document which clearly reflects that passengers will do their own thing if not kept informed and sets out an approach to be adopted by NR and TOCs in dealing with a situation like this.

RAIB need to investigate but i wonder as ORR are already taking a look under the bonnet over the performance of this section they may see it as a duplicate of effort and further strain on the staff so wont.

 

[JustPassingBy]

Sometimes a long detailed investigation isn't needed - and if one is done the most significant points tend to get lost in the detail. Really this comes down to a few points.

1. People will exit trains on their own given enough time in the dark/cold with no updates and no signs of rescue, especially in urban areas.
2. The more times this happens, the quicker people will resort to that.
3. Various cost-reducing design/operational decisions make big failures/events like this more likely (headspans, limited battery life, not enough people/equipment in place to rescue, arguably DOO, etc).
4. The railway needs to accept the above and plan accordingly. It's far from ideal, but it is what it is. Clearly a higher priority is needed on getting rescue people out to stranded trains to coordinate (or at least monitor) - but it's not clear who those people are and who takes responsibility for making sure it happens in quick time. That seems to be the biggest question for me.

 

[Taunton]

Among many deeply unimpressive aspects of TfL's handling of this incident, starting a blame game with another operator over an infrastructure failure is perhaps the worst. A real low point for the railway in general.

But it's true ...