There has been an enormous outcry over this sacking locally! It has been all over BBC Radio Solent. It seems that the 27-year veteran was a well-known and liked personality. He tended the station plants, spent a lot of time working out the cheapest tickets for customers, etc. The hinted suggestion was that ..... Of course the chap has lost his job, hios mortgage protection insurance, and his pension. The local vicar referred to this 'ultimate sanction' as I would put it.
There was an appposite comment made by a telephone caller that if he had done nothing to retrieve the trolley, and a train ran into it, with people injured, he would have been taken to task for doing nothing and wopuld have been labeled a 'jobsworth'. The delays on 7/7 for the ambulance crews to get to the victims because of safety concerns by the police were alluded-to in that connection.
I know the Lymington branch well...I can imagine that if the chap had telephoned Brockenhurst signalbox they could have prevented the train from leaving Brock, or re-set the signal before the Level Crossing. I don't know of any other signals on the line save for that Northbound before the LC and at the junction with the main lines. Are there cab radios on the 450s that work weekends?
The local radio mentioned that someone attended the appeal hearing and the appellant was not allowed to say what had hapened, i.e. speak in his own defence. Hmmm...get a lawyer Sir as if that is the case then this might be an arguable breach of Human Rights legislation.
